#working in an environment where the rules are evidence based and also clearly communicated to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crossdressingdeath · 4 years ago

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I know you'll probably disagree with me, but i rlly hate the Cloud recessess ending. It's just....

Those elders killed wwx. The Lans were 100% ready to murder both at Qiongqi path but also at the siege. They see him as the guy who corrupted their precious jade. They all preach righteousness, but the whole madam Lan thing is iffy at best and i do not believe that everyone there fully believes the rules. Hell, i have a special bone to pick with the " do not gossip" rule, seeing as gossip had been the main info route for women in patriarchal societies.

I just don't think that after wwx killed Lans in the siege they'd be all that willing to forgive him and take him in w open arms. The juniors and kids love him, yes, but people who saw the war....

Not to mention the whole " do not speak to WWX " rule. I've seen ppl say it's a joke but it's On The Wall. It's supposed to be followed. Even if it was intended as a joke - which i don't believe - it's very cruel for someone w rejection and trust issues.

I also hate it from a very personal perspective. I see Wwx as ND, and, as an ND myself, all those rules terrify me. From the no running and the proper posture ones, i can pretty well imagine they forbid stimming. The Lan curfew would fuck anyone with insomnia and there's smth deeply ucked up abt the " do not grieve in excess". I get that they're supossed to be a paragon of the best things at all time, and that LJY is very UnLan like, but for someone w anxiety who CAN'T follow those rules, it would be a nightmare.

...Some points:

First, the Lan elders did not kill WWX, nor did they attack him unfairly. They weren’t looking at him as the man who corrupted LWJ, either, or at least that wasn’t their primary concern (I will never forgive CQL for suggesting they were or it was); they were looking at him as a traitor to the sects who was raising an army to destroy them. Remember, that is the information the Lans had. Every source they had except for LWJ (who the people he would have gone to would have known was biased and who presumably everyone knew had recently been in close contact with WWX where he could have been manipulated or enchanted in some way), sources which included multiple sect leaders (one of whom was WWX’s brother) and LXC’s dear friend, swore up and down that WWX was a major threat, and let’s face it, WWX didn’t do much to dissuade people from thinking that! Acting like the Lans were maliciously targeting WWX is doing them something of a disservice, I’d say. They acted based on the knowledge they had available; note how the Lans are the first to offer WWX their help once they’re given reason to believe he may not be a villain! And even aside from that, saying they killed WWX (and not JGS and JGY’s manipulation or JC’s army) feels a bit like scapegoating, honestly. Of the four sects, the Lans are quite possibly the least responsible for WWX’s death. If it would hurt him to live with or around anyone who held any responsibility for his death his only option would be to live as a hermit, which would be far worse for him. And yeah, the Lans aren’t perfectly righteous all the time and some morally dubious things have been done by Lan sect members; they’re human, after all! Some of them will only be as moral as their sect leader demands they be! That doesn’t mean the sect as a whole is bad, especially with LXC, LQR and LWJ in charge. Certainly I’d say they’re still better than the other sects, all things considered. One ambiguous situation that may or may not have involved some members of the previous generation doing some fucked up shit doesn’t mean WWX would for sure be mistreated!

As for gossip... there’s a difference between sharing information and gossiping. There’s no evidence that the Lan women are blocked from... y’know, freely communicating and sharing information between themselves. We have no reason to believe they are reliant on gossip. Also they presumably go out night hunting just like the men? Men and women are kept separate in the Cloud Recesses, but I get the sense that that’s more like... school stuff than anything else. The women aren’t exactly locked up, they can be cultivators! The society is still sexist, but that doesn’t mean they’re kept from going out and doing things. And I need to make this clear: there is a fair chance that the rule against gossip saved LWJ’s life, because it kept word of him defending WWX from the sects from spreading to people who would not be willing to let bygones be bygones. Gossip sucks! It hurts people! A lot of this story (and more to the point the suffering of the characters within the story) happens because of gossip! The Lans banning gossip is pretty clearly supposed to be a good thing, I’d say.

And yeah, maybe after WWX killed a bunch of their sect the Lans wouldn’t accept him with open arms as if nothing ever happened! And that’s fair! I can’t imagine where WWX could go where that wouldn’t be the case, unless he and LWJ chose to abandon the cultivation world forever. But you know what else the Lans won’t do? Try to execute him. Or from what we see in the extras even dwell on the past that much. No, the Lans aren’t going to immediately forgive WWX and bring him into the fold without a moment’s hesitation, but you know what? They accept his marriage to LWJ! They let him supervise the juniors on night hunts! They consider him part of their sect! Honestly, that is all WWX can really ask and far more than he’d get from any other sect. There are consequences for what WWX did, even though he wasn’t the villain or necessarily trying to hurt anyone, and frankly people not being entirely comfortable with his presence is very much reasonable.

The “do not speak to WWX” rule may not be a joke, but it’s also pretty clearly not a serious rule. No one takes it seriously. The juniors (the only people WWX really talks to anyway aside from LXC and LWJ) only pay it the minimum lip service of talking to him off the path. WWX himself sure as hell doesn’t care! He clearly finds it pretty damn funny. And I don’t think a guy who has never liked him once again proving he does not like him (in a way that is clearly temporary given how later LQR invites WWX to the Lan family banquet with... reasonable amounts of grace, thereby implicitly accepting him as LWJ’s husband and therefore his own family by marriage) counts as a rejection or a breach of WWX’s trust? Like, LQR has literally always hated WWX. He isn’t preventing WWX and LWJ from spending time together or shutting WWX out of the Cloud Recesses or even making a concentrated effort to keep people from talking to him; he’s venting his frustrations, but if he really intended to block WWX from taking part in life in the Cloud Recesses he would’ve done a hell of a lot more than just make a rule who no one WWX likes follows anyway. It’s a temper tantrum, that’s all, and clearly that’s what WWX takes it as. I mean, if nothing else you can’t ban people from talking to the sect heir’s spouse indefinitely. That’s just not sustainable.

As for the rules... banning people from running in the Cloud Recesses and demanding proper posture during lessons doesn’t suggest to me that they wouldn’t allow stimming? ‘No running’ at least is a common rule... most places. It’s distracting, and can be dangerous. And the rule about sitting properly doesn’t mean “Don’t move at all ever”; it means... well, “sit properly”. Don’t slouch or sprawl across the floor. I see no reason why that wouldn’t preclude means of stimming that wouldn’t be disruptive (and given this is in a classroom environment “not disruptive” is kind of important). I mean, those rules certainly don’t suggest that they’re any worse than other sects, and given this is the sect that has magic music for calming people’s minds if any sect would give allowances for neurodivergence it would be this one. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a song to put people to sleep, or medication that can help; this is a world with magic, after all, and if there’s a song that can put spirits to rest there are probably songs for human medicine and care. And of course there’s an element of conflicting needs; maybe the rules would screw you over, but frankly firmly enforced rules keeping people from running around or sprawling out of their seats would’ve been a godsend for me in school, given how much trouble I had focusing with people making noise around me. At the end of the day, is it guaranteed that the Lans would make allowances for people with needs that conflict with the Lan rules? No. But I’d argue it’s more likely that they would than any other sect. This is ahistorical fantasy ancient China, too; you can only expect so much in the mental health department. Still, a sect that literally invented magic music for calming the mind actually seems like the best choice for people with anxiety and such. There’s a reason why there are multiple fics that essentially set the Lans up as mental health experts in the setting!

Basically, a lot of your arguments seem to be issues that WWX would have in any sect. Unless he wanted to give up on the support of a sect altogether, they’re all things that he would have to work through or come to terms with. And of course... the most important point is that WWX is happy in the Lan sect. The extras make that clear. He has a home, duties that he enjoys performing, the love of his family and the support of his sect. He’s happy. I just... I do not understand why people keep feeling the need to try to make it angsty when the novel makes it clear that he genuinely enjoys his life in Gusu, and more than that that if he ever decided he didn’t enjoy it he could leave at any time. You have to remember that: if WWX wanted to leave... he would. He and LWJ would just go, and only come back occasionally so that LWJ could visit his home. Hell, LWJ would insist on leaving for WWX’s sake. So like... the Lan sect wouldn’t suit everyone, but WWX is quite content there and doesn’t want to leave. He’s happy and free to come and go as he wishes; there really isn’t anything to be concerned about there.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #anon #asks

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eganantiquus · 5 years ago

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Capitalism: Its Effects on Heaven, Hell, and a Few Others // A Good Omens Meta

I think the discussion about capitalism in Good Omens is a very interesting one to have- specifically in how it relates to Heaven and Hell. I saw a post about it recently, about the Quartermaster saying Heaven would “take the sword out of [Aziraphale’s] celestial wages,” which begs the question: does Heaven have money? A system of checks and balances on the Angels’ miracles, perhaps? Heaven is, after all, the original monopoly. But how does that affect them? Or affect Hell, for that matter? (Keep in mind, I will primarily be discussing events and dialogue from the TV show, as that’s the canon I’m most familiar and comfortable with extrapolating on.) So let’s move out a bit to take stock of the bigger picture. First of all in this discussion, let’s remember that the entire structure of Heaven and Hell blatantly showcases the shittiest parts of capitalism. As a reminder, the cons of capitalism can include: a monopoly on trade, goods, or services; social/emotional necessities ignored in the pursuit of profit; lack of concern for the environment; driving need for exponentially increased profit, allowing no space for slip-ups or less-profitable cycles; Inherited wealth, and big gaps in economic equality, which creates social divisions, which cause people to resent their fellow citizens. Let’s first take a look at something we’re all familiar with. Heaven’s and Hell’s relationship with Crowley and Aziraphale. Both Heaven and Hell have an inherent monopoly on basically everything, which is something we see both Crowley and Aziraphale struggling with in different ways throughout history. They want to exist outside of the hierarchy, but there literally isn’t any outside. In terms of social/emotional needs… do I need to go into the trauma and anxiety that Heaven and Hell instill in Crowley and Aziraphale? A post for another time. And it’s apparent, however much they try to hide it, that both of them fear authority, and would do practically anything to get away from it. So, they wiggle out from under it in whatever ways they can. (See: the “arrangement,” Crowley’s “there’s more to evil than killing people, eh?” and Aziraphale’s “Well, if you put it that way, Heaven couldn’t actually object… ”) Lack of concern for the environment can be extrapolated to Heaven and Hell’s lack of care for humanity. (See also, uh, nuclear Armageddon.) Inherited wealth/prestige is definitely a thing: see the Archangels lording their power over the lower Principalities. There’s a bit more room for mobility in Hell, where doing more evil deeds = more prestige & (...dis)honor? Anyway, this is where Hell begins to deviate. Exponential need for profit in Heaven and Hell translates to their increasing intolerance of Aziraphale’s *ahem* lies. Hell is more lenient in this area too- perhaps because of their disorganization. So Heaven and Hell are capitalistic. But in what capacity, and what is the effect on their respective denizens? In practice, who’s the winner in this capitalistic structure? Hell isn’t, no matter how inherently hellish capitalism might be. They’re clearly the losers in this situation- they’ve got terrible service, (see: Hastur having to “[wait] for maintenance to come and fix another bloody pipe,”* and the Demon Eric’s “we don’t get this view down in the basement.”) lack the organization to rise up against Heaven, (see: the frankly concerning lack of organized preparation for The Great War) and are constantly put down. They all have to fight for their positions, and are intimately familiar with what the failure to succeed in this “business” means. Not to mention that their entire hierarchy is performance driven, showing the capitalistic values they, for lack of a better term, grew up in, are still ingrained in all their practices. Heaven is at the top of an office building, has views of the entire world, is clean and obviously well organized. It’s clear what the hierarchy is there- everyone walks in lines, Gabriel always stands slightly in front of Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon, all of the higher Angels we see interact with Aziraphale treat him like he’s less than them. Heaven clearly benefits from the organization and driving force that capitalism provides, while Hell is just getting by.

To dive further into what the effects of capitalism are on Heaven and Hell, let’s go into depth more about Heaven and Hell’s respective war preparation to analyze their motivations.

Hell’s war preparations are disorganized, at best. All the Demons of Hell, gathered around two ‘generals,’ getting ready to hear a pep talk best described as being far from premeditated or sophisticated. On top of this, the second something goes wrong, Beelzebub says it. Just like that, to all the Demons. It makes me cringe every time I watch it, to see the rest of the Demons turn to each other and wonder if they’re following the right leader. The thing about this, though, is that they don’t have another option for a leader. This is the place for the people who couldn’t make it in Heaven, the outcasts and Fallen, so they don’t care. There’s nowhere else for anyone to go. Hell is far more transparent about their hate, their evil, but also about their vulnerability. Perhaps not individual vulnerability, (see: Crowley needing to be Cool and Collected at every moment) but in their overall anxieties and problems, Hell is very transparent. There is no need to hide the problems Hell has, because there’s no worse place to go. In this way, Hell has accepted their fate at the bottom of the totem pole.

Now let’s talk about Heaven’s war preparations. When Aziraphale arrives prematurely in Heaven, his “whole platoon” is “waiting” for him. So, Heaven has an organized war effort. They have uniforms. They have someone checking everyone in, putting them into place. (Where do they all line up to go to war? Where does the war Occur?? Questions for another time.) However, here is the interesting part: Heaven’s whole spiel to get everyone motivated, unlike Hell, is based on fear. While Hell brings up the actual motive for fighting, saying “we lost” and “we have had thousands of years to… get smarter,” Heaven tells Aziraphale that he’s a “coward” if he doesn’t fight, while not providing any reason besides ‘he’s supposed to.’

Here lies the beginning of the difference between Heaven and Hell: their motivators. Now let’s talk about how they carry out justice, and how that is an indicator of the effects of capitalism on them both.

Hell’s trial for Crowley is a mockery of the word, let’s be perfectly clear. They don’t provide him with a defense, and have an implicitly biased jury. However, it is a trial. A trial with evidence presented against him, a prosecutor, and a judge, and everything. What’s so interesting to me, about this, is that they don’t think for a minute that there wouldn’t be a trial. If they had thought such a thing was possible, they would have taken the opportunity. But they didn’t think of it. And that is what is so important here. Hell is the one that carries out a just trial. And I think that really speaks to their experiences as the Fallen. They know what no mercy looks like, what it is to be cut off from God’s love, with no hope for recompense. And, however evil they are, they know how much that hurts. Hell is just because they were given no justice.

Heaven, on the other hand? There’s no preamble to Aziraphale’s “trial.” There isn’t even a trial. There’s just the characteristic fake-niceties boiled down to their basest component: a complete lack of empathy for anyone who deviates from the norm. (See Gabriel’s “into the flames,” and “don’t talk to me about the ‘greater good,’ sunshine.”). And, oh yeah by the way, what kind of good and just society uses capital punishment? Isn’t that the exact sort of thing Heaven should be above? I should sure hope so! Their believed moral code, the idea that because they’re Angels, divinely Chosen by God, that whatever they do is predestined to be right, has all the flavor of a strong dictatorship. So convinced are they of their superiority that even outright capital punishment is not below them. This is an interesting contrast to their motivation of fear that we looked at in the previous section. Perhaps higher Angels use fear to keep Angels in line, but feel exempt from the process itself. Very similar to the way big CEO's in the human business world accumulate wealth and power while their workers work paycheck to paycheck.

So Heaven is fundamentally bad, and Hell is fundamentally… good?

Not quite.

Both Heaven and Hell are operating under the millennia of repressed trauma and baggage that came with the first war. For example, let’s look at their refusal to see nuance in the issue of war Take a look at Gabriel’s “We can fight! And we can win!” to Aziraphale and Beezlebub’s “Don’t you want to rule the world?” to Adam. They can’t comprehend that someone would want to, or, for that matter, could look at the structure of The Way Things Are and go, ‘No, this is not for me, I think I’ll just do this quietly over her instead.’ Heaven and Hell have each been indoctrinated in their own ways, by God and by Heaven and by their own inability to look past their instructions.

So, Heaven and Hell operate under the guidelines of a capitalistic system because of their respective experiences with authority and punishment.

What does this say about Crowley and Aziraphale? That they’ve managed to dodge this system (mostly) altogether, and made one of their own… based purely on joy, mutual respect, and They still have their issues, (See: Being unable to communicate effectively. When? Oh, just for all of history) but for the most part, they’re living their own lives. It takes an especially strong will to stand up to a faulty administration, even if the standing up part consists of drinking a lot of wine, sliding around killing people, and consorting with an enemy who’s actually quite nice. It takes what a lot of Angels and Demons, simply put, don’t have. Like Hastur, who doesn’t have an “imagination.” Crowley invented one for himself. Crowley and Aziraphale practically invented free will for themselves, too. Part of their ability to so wholly reject their ‘upbringing,’ if you will, must be connected to the fact that they spend so much time around humans. If we go with TV show canon, they’re practically the only ethereal/occult entities that are on Earth for any long period of time. Of course they’re going to catch on from the humans. So Crowley and Aziraphale are the only celestial beings who have been able to get free of this terrible system, and so are able to better ‘guide’ the humans, which inevitably leads them to attempting to stop armageddon. (And of course, the apocalypse, according to Aziraphale, is something no “reasonable person would permit!”)

This brings us to the humans. Specifically, how Heaven is supposed to guide them. Heaven doesn’t, insofar as we are aware, care about the humans. Perhaps other Angels do, ones who have walked among them. But for the most part, especially with Gabriel, Michael, Sandalphon- the people in charge- the humans are an afterthought. They’re one knight on the chessboard, easily moved, taken, and discarded- perhaps with a bit of regret, but dispensable all the same. In this way, the exponential growth mindset that Heaven has goes to show just how far they’ve deviated from God’s design. Now, far be it from me to speculate on the nature of the Ineffable Plan, but as far as I’m aware, the Angels were created to love humanity, and to nurture them. Doesn’t sound like what they’re doing at all, does it?

So in this way, we can see that both Heaven and Hell have gotten the short end of the metaphorical capitalism stick. Hell, at the bottom of the ranks, desperate to climb back up and regain their glory, but unable to do so because of the weight of their Falling trauma; Heaven, in all its Jeff Bezos glory, unable to see the consequences of their actions close up because of their disassociation with “reality.”

Capitalism and economics in general are incredibly nuanced things, and I do not at all pretend to fully understand them. However, I fully enjoy imagining how the complex dynamics of Good Omens universe Heaven and Hell deal with the repercussions of existence and their own actions through the lens of capitalism.

*side note from paragraph seven: I think maintenance work would be a more fitting job for Crowley and Aziraphale, and frankly, I would love to read a fic about that.

#good omens #good omens meta #capitalism #meta essay #i did this ages ago and forgot to post it here lol #also can be found on my ao3!#go #go meta

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arfox158 · 4 years ago

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5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages

TLDR: With a bit of research and support we were able to demonstrate a proof of concept for introducing a fraudulent payment message to move £0.5M from one account to another, by manually forging a raw SWIFT MT103 message, and leveraging specific system trust relationships to do the hard work for us!

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages App

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages Message

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages To My

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages For Her

Before we begin: This research is based on work we performed in close-collaboration with one of our clients; however, the systems, architecture, and payment-related details have been generalized / redacted / modified as to not disclose information specific to their environment.

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5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages App

With that said.. *clears throat*

The typical Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) against SWIFT systems we see in reports and the media are - for the most part - the following:

Compromise the institution's network;

Move laterally towards critical payment systems;

Compromise multiple SWIFT Payment Operator (PO) credentials;

Access the institution's SWIFT Messaging Interface (MI);

Keys in - and then authorize - payment messages using the compromised PO accounts on the MI.

This attack-path requires the compromise of multiple users, multiple systems, an understanding of how to use the target application, bypass of 2FA, attempts to hide access logs, avoid alerting the legitimate operators, attempts to disrupt physical evidence, bespoke malware, etc. – so, quite involved and difficult. Now that’s all good and fine, but having reviewed a few different payment system architectures over the years, I can’t help but wonder:

“Can't an attacker just target the system at a lower level? Why not target the Message Queues directly? Can it be done?”

A hash-based MAC might simply be too big. On the other hand, hash-based MACs, because they are larger, are less likely to have clashes for a given size of message. A MAC that is too small might turn out to be useless, as a variety of easy-to-generate messages might compute to the same MAC value, resulting in a collision. WhatsApp Messenger is a FREE messaging app available for iPhone and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone's Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to let you message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and Voice Messages. WHY USE WHATSAPP. Garrick Hello, I'm Garrick Chow, and welcome to this course on computer literacy for the Mac. This course is aimed at the complete computer novice, so if you're the sort of person who feels some mild anxiety, nervousness, or even dread every time you sit down in front of your computer, this course is for you.

Well, let's find out! My mission begins!

So, first things first! I needed to fully understand the specific “section” of the target institution's payment landscape I was going to focus on for this research. In this narrative, there will be a system called “Payment System” (SYS). This system is part of the institution's back-office payment landscape, receiving data in a custom format and output's an initial payment instructions in ISO 15022 / RJE / SWIFT MT format. The reason I sought this scenario was specifically because I wanted to focus on attempting to forge an MT103 payment message - that is:

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MT – “Message Type” Literal;

1 – Category 1 (Customer Payments and Cheques);

0 – Group 0 (Financial Institution Transfer);

3 – Type 3 (Notification);

All together this is classified as the MT103 “Single Customer Credit Transfer”.

Message type aside, what does this payment flow look like at a high level? Well I’ve only gone and made a fancy diagram for this!

Overall this is a very typical and generic architecture design. However, let me roughly break down what this does:

The Payment System (SYS) ingests data in a custom - or alternative - message format from it's respective upstream systems. SYS then outputs an initial payment instruction in SWIFT MT format;

SYS sends this initial message downstream to a shared middelware (MID) component, which converts (if necessary) the received message into the modern MT format understood by SWIFT - Essentially a message broker used by a range of upstream payment systems within the institution;

MID forwards the message in it's new format on to the institution's Messaging Interface (let's say its SAA in this instance) for processing;

Once received by SAA, the message content is read by the institution's sanction screening / Anti-money laundering systems (SANCT).

Given no issues are found, the message is sent on to the institution's Communication Interface (SWIFT Alliance Gateway), where it's then signed and routed to the recipient institution over SWIFTNet.

OK, so now I have a general understanding of what I'm up against. But if I wanted to exploit the relationships between these systems to introduce a fraudulent payment without targeting any payment operators, I was going to need to dig deeper and understand the fundamental technologies in use!

So how are these messages actually 'passed' between each system? I need to know exactly what this looks like and how its done!

More often than not, Message Queues (MQ) are heavily used to pass messages between components in a large payment system. However, there are also various “Adapter” that may be used between systems communicating directly with the SAG (Such as SAA or other bespoke/3rd party systems). These are typically the:

Remote API Host Adapter (RAHA);

MQ Host Adapter (MQHA);

Web Services Host Adapter (WSHA).

Having identified that MQ was in use, my initial assumption was that there was most likely a dedicated Queue Manager (QM) server somewhere hosting various queues that systems push and pull messages from? However, due to SWIFT CSP requirements, this would most likely - at a minimum - take the form of two Queue Managers. One which manages the queues within the SWIFT Secure Zone, and another that manages queues for the general corporate network and back office systems.

Let's update that diagram to track / represent this understanding: Now I could research how this 'messaging' worked!

There are multiple ways to configure Message Queues architectures, in this case there were various dedicated input and output queues for each system, and the message flow looks something like this: Full disclosure, turns out it’s hard to draw an accurate - yet simple - MQ flow diagram (that one was basically my 4th attempt). So it’s.. accurate 'enough' for what we needed to remember!

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages Message

Now I had a good understanding of how it all worked, it is time to define my goal: 'Place a payment message directly on to a queue, and have it successfully processed by all downstream systems'.

This sounds simple, just write a message to a queue, right? But there are a few complications!

Why are there few indications of this attack vector in the wild?

How do I even gain “write” access to the right queue?

What protects the message on the queues?

What protects the messages in transit?

What format are the messages in?

What is the correct syntax for that message format at any particular queue (0 margin for error)?

Where does PKI come in? How / where / when are the messages signed?

Can I somehow get around the message signing?

What values in the messages are dependent / controlled / defined by the system processing them (out of my control)?

What is the maximum amount I can transfer using Straight Through Processing, without alerting the institution / requiring manual validation?

But OK, there's no point dwelling on all of that right now, I'll just clearly define what I want to do! The goal:

Successfully write a payment instruction for 500,000 GBP;

Inject that message directly onto a specific queue;

Have the message pass environment-specific validation rules;

Have the message pass sanctions and AML checks.

Have the message successfully signed;

Have the message pass SWIFTNet-specific validation rules;

What I was not interested in doing for this research - yet needed to understand nevertheless for a full attack chain was:

How to compromise the institution's network;

How to gain access to the MQ admin's workstation;

How to obtain the pre-requisite credentials.

What I wanted to 100% avoid at all costs:

The attack involving SWIFT payment operators in any way;

The attack involving SWIFT application access in any way;

A need to compromise signing keys / HSMs;

A need to compromise SWIFTNet operator accounts or certificates or any type of PKI;.

Now I had an idea of what to do, I needed to make sure I could write a raw MT103 payment instruction! Typically, even when operators write payment messages using a messaging interface application like Alliance Access, they only really write the message “body” via a nice GUI. As raw data this could look something like:

I'll break this down in the following table:

NameFieldValueTransaction Reference20TRANSACTIONRF103Bank Operation Code23BCRED (Message is to 'credit' some beneficiary)Value Date / Currency / Amount32A200102 (02/01/2020) GBP 500,000.00Currency / Original Credit Amount33BGBP 500000,00 (£500,000.00)Ordering Customer50KGB22EBNK88227712345678 (IBAN) JOHN DOE (Name) JOHN'S BUSINESS LTD (Line 1) 21 JOHN STREET, LONDON, GB (Line 2)Beneficiary59KFR20FBNK88332287654321 (IBAN) ALICE SMITH (Name) ALICE'S COMPANY (Line 1) 10 ALICE STREET, PARIS, FR (Line 2)Remittance Information7012345-67890 (essentially a payment reference)Details of Charge71ASHA (Shared charge between sender and receiver)

Now as this is a valid message body, if I were targeting a payment operator on SWIFT Alliance Access, I could - for the 'most' part - simply paste the message into SAA's raw message creation interface and I'd be pretty much done. With the exception of adding the sender / recipient BIC codes and most likely selecting a business unit. However, these values are not stored in the message body. Not stored in the message body you say? Well that complicates things! Where are they stored exactly?

The message “body” is referred to as “block 4” (aka the “Text Block”) within the SWIFT MT standard. As suggested by the name, there is probably also a block 1-3. This is correct; and these blocks are typically generated by the payment processing applications - such as SWIFT Alliance Access - and not necessarily input by the operators. A 'complete' MT103 message consists of 6 blocks:

Block 1 – Basic Header

Block 2 – Application Header

Block 3 – User Header

Block 4 – Text Block

Block 5 – Trailer

Block 6 – System block

So it looked like I was going to need to learn how to craft these various “blocks” from scratch.

Block 1 (Basic header)

Reading through some documentation, I crafted the following “Basic header” block:

A breakdown of what this translates too is as follows:

NameValueContextBasic Header Flag1Block 1 (Not 2, 3, 4, or 5)Application TypeFFIN ApplicationMessage Type0101 = FIN (I.e not ACK/NACK)Sender BICEBNKGB20EBNK (Bank Code) GB (Country Code) 20 (Location Code)Sender Logical TerminalATypically A, unless they are a significantly large institution and require multiple terminalsSender BranchXXXAll X if no branch neededSession Number0000The session number for the messageSequence Number 999999The sequence number of the message

Taking a step back, I already identified two potential problems: the “session” and “sequence” numbers! These are described as follows:

Session Number – Must also equal the current application session number of the application entity that receives the input message.

Sequence number – The sequence number must be equal to the next expected number.

Hmmm, at this point I was not sure how I could predetermine a valid session and/or sequence number - considering they seemed to be application and 'traffic' specific? But there was nothing I could do at the time, so I noted it down in a list of 'issues/blockers' to come back to later.

Block 2 (Application Header)

A bit more dry reading later, I managed to also throw together an application header:

Again, I’ve broken this down so it makes sense (if it didn’t already; I’m not one to assume):

NameValueContextApplication Header Flag2Block 2I/O IdentifierIInput Message (a message being sent)Message Type103103 = Single Customer Credit TransactionRecipient BICFBNKFR20FBNK (Bank Code) FR (Country Code) 20 (Location Code)Recipient Logical TerminalXAll General Purpose Application Messages must use 'X'Recipient BranchXXXAll General Purpose Application Messages must use 'XXX'Message PriorityNNormal (Not Urgent)

Awesome! No issues crafting this header!

Note: At this point I should probably mention that these BIC codes are not 'real', however are accurate in terms of in format and length.

Block 3 (User Header)

The third block is called the “User Header” block, which can be used to define some “special” processing rules. By leverage this header, I could specify that the message should be processed using “Straight Through Processing” (STP) rules which essentially attempts to ensure that the message is processed end-to-end without human intervention. This could be specified as follows:

However, this was not yet a valid header! As of November 2018 the user header requires a mandatory “Unique end-to-end transaction reference” (UETR) value, which was introduced as part of SWIFT's Global Payments Innovation initiative (gpi)! This is a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) compliant with the 4th version of the generation algorithm used by the IETF standard 'RFC4122'. This consists of 32 hexadecimal characters, divided into 5 parts by hyphens as follows:

where:

x – any lowercase hexadecimal character;

4 – fixed value;

y – either: 8, 9, a, b.

This value can be generated using Python as seen below:

With an acceptable UETR generated, this is how the third block looked:

And as before, a breakdown can be found below:

NameValueContextUser Header Flag3Block 3Validation Flag119Indicates whether FIN must perform any type of special validationValidation FieldSTPRequests the FIN system to validate the message according to the straight through processing principlesUETR Field121Indicates the Unique end-to-end transaction reference valueUETR Value8b1b42b5-669f-46ff-b2f2-c21f99788834Unique end-to-end transaction reference used to track payment instruction

Block 5 and 6 (Trailer and System Blocks)

I’ve already discussed “block 4” (the message body), so to wrap this section up, I'll be looking at the final 2 blocks: Block 5, aka the “Trailer”; and block S, aka the “System” block.

Before going forward, let me take a moment to explain the pointlessly complicated concept of input and output messages:

An “input” message (I) is a message which is traveling “outbound” from the institution. So this is a message being “input” by an operator and sent by the institution to another institution.

An “output” message (O) is a message which is traveling “inbound” to the institution. So this is a message being “output” by SWIFTNet and being received by the institution.

OK, moving swiftly (aaaahhhhh!) on.

For Input messages, these blocks were not too much of a problem. The headers only really seemed to be used to flag whether the message was for training / testing or to flag if it was a possible duplicate, which syntactically took the following form:

Where “TNG” indicated “training” and “SPD” indicated “possible duplicate”.

However, with Output messages, it got considerably more complicated. An example of what the trailer and system block could look like on an Output message is the following:

A breakdown of these various values is:

Trailer ((5:) MAC – Message Authentication Code calculated based on the entire contents of the message using a key that has been exchanged with the destination bank and a secret algorithm; CHK – This is a PKI checksum of the message body, used to ensure the message has not been corrupted in transit; TNG – A flag to indicate that the message is a Testing and Training Message.

System ((S:) SPD – Possible Duplicate Flag SAC – Successfully Authenticated and Authorized Flag. This is only present if:

Signature verification was successful.

RMA (Relationship Management Application) authorization and verification was successful.

COP – Flag indicating that this is the primary message copy; MDG – The HMAC256 of the message using LAU keys.

However, these seemed to only be values I would need to consider if I was to try and forge an “incoming” message from SWIFTNet or an 'outbound' message on the output of the SAG.

So.. I'll stick with crafting an “input' message trailer:

Now, having said all that, it turned out the trailer block did seem to sometimes hold a MAC code and a message checksum (sigh), meaning I actually needed to construct something like:

So that was +2 to my 'issues/blockers' list. However, issues aside, I now understood the complete message format, and could put it all together and save the following as a draft / template MT103 message:

Highlighted in bold above are the areas of the message I was - at this point - unable to pre-determine. Nevertheless, a summary of what that the message describes is:

Using the transaction reference “TRANSACTIONRF103”;

please transfer 500,000.00 GBP;

from John Doe, (IBAN: GB22EBNK88227712345678) at “English Bank” (BIC: EBNKGB20);

to Alice Smith (IBAN: FR20FBNK88332287654321) at “French Bank” (BIC: FBNKFR20);

Furthermore, please ensure the transaction charge is shared between the two institutions;

and mark the payment with a reference of “12345-67890”.

To wrap up this section, i wanted to take a moment to explain some logic behind the target of 500,000 GBP, as it is also important.

Aside from the many reasons it would be better to transfer (even) smaller amounts (which is an increasingly common tactic deployed by modern threat actors), why not go higher? This is where it’s important to understand the system and environment you are targeting.

In this instance, let's assume that by doing recon for a while I gathered the understanding that:

If a message comes from SYS which is over £500k;

even if it has been subject to a 4 eye check;

and even if it is flagged for STP processing;

route it to a verification queue and hold it for manual verification.

This was because a transaction over £500k was determined to be “abnormal” for SYS. As such, if my transaction was greater, the message would not propagate through all systems automatically.

OK, so now that I understood:

how the system worked;

how it communicated;

the fundamental structure of a raw MT103 payment messages;

and how much I could reliably (attempt) to transfer.

And with that, it was time to take a break from MT standards and establish an understanding of how I would even get into a position to put this into practice!

To place a message on a queue, I was going to need two things:

Access to the correct queue manager;

Write access to the correct queues.

Depending on the environment and organisation, access to queue managers could be quite different and complex. However a bare-bones setup may take the following form:

An MQ Administrator accesses their dedicated workstation using AD credentials;

They then remotely access a dedicated jump server via RDP which only their host is whitelisted to access;

This may be required as the queues may make use of Channel Authentication Records, authorizing specific systems and user accounts access to specific queues;

The channels may further be protected by MQ Message Encryption (MQME) which encrypts messages at rest based on specific channels. As such, even if someone was a “super duper master admin” they would only be able to read / write to queues specifically allocated to them within the MQME configuration file (potential target for another time?);

The MQ Admin can then use tools such via the Jump Server to read/write to their desired message queues.

So, in this scenario, to gain access to the message queues I - as an attacker - would need to compromise the MQ admin’s AD account and workstations, then use this to gain access to the jump host, from where I could then access the message queues given I knew the correct channel name and was configured with authorization to access it.. and maybe throw some MFA in there..

That is understandably a significant requirement! However, when discussion sophisticated attacks against Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI), it is more than reasonable to accept that an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) would see this as a feasible objective - We don't need to dig into the history of how sophisticated attacks targeting SWIFT systems can be.

Next, it was time to finally identify a feasible attack vector for message forgery.

Now with an idea of how to gain the right access, as well as an understanding of the various technologies and security controls in place; I update my diagram:

You may have noticed I've added something called “LAU” around the SAA-to-SAG adapter, and another “LAU” to the MID-to-SAA MQ channels, which I have yet to explain. “Local Authentication” (LAU) is a security control implemented by SWIFT to authenticate messages using a pair of shared keys between two systems. These keys are combined and used to generate a SHA256 HMAC of the message and append it to the S block. This can then be validated by the recipient system. Effectively, this validates the origin and authenticity of a message. As such, even if an attacker was in position to introduce a fraudulent payment, they'd first need to compromise both the left and the right LAU signing keys, generate the correct HMAC, and append it to the message in order to have it accepted / processed successfully.

But LAU aside, I now just needed to figure out which queue to target! There were a lot of queues to work with as each system essentially has multiple “input” and “output” queues. With that in mind, it was important to note that: an incoming message would require being in the format expected by the target system (from a specific upstream system) and an outgoing message would need to be in the format “produced” by one target system and “expected / ingested / processed” by its respective downstream system. So to figure this out, I worked backwards from the Gateway.

Targeting SAG

This was the least feasible attack vector!

I hadn't really looked into how the SWIFT adapters worked - If only I could research literally everything);

SAA and SAG implemented LAU on messages sent between them - An excellent security control!;

The output of SAG was directly on to SWIFTNet which would entail all sorts of other complications - this is an understatement)!

Next!

Targeting SAA

So what if I wanted to drop a message on the “outbound” channel of SAA?

LAU and the SWIFT adapter aside, remember those session and sequence numbers? Well, messages which leave SAA are in the near-final stages of their outbound life-cycle, and as far as I understood would need to have valid session and sequence values. Given I didn't know how to generate these values without gaining access to SAA or how they worked in general (and lets not forget the LAU signing) this didn't currently seem feasible.

Next!

Targeting SANCT

This solution didn't actually transport messages back and forth; it just reads messages off the queues and performed checks on their details. Not much I could wanted to leverage here.

Targeting MID

To target MID, I could try and inject a message onto SAA’s “input” queue, or the “output” queue of MID. This would only need to match the format of messages produced by the Middleware solution (MID). Following this, in theory, the (mistial) message session and sequence number would be added by SAA, along with the UETR. This was promising!

However, MID was a SWIFT “message partner”, which are typically solutions developed using the Alliance Access Development Kit that allows vendors to develop SWIFTNet compatible software, and consequentially, implement LAU. So again, in-order to forge a message here, I’d need to compromise the left and right LAU signing keys used between SAA and MID, manually HMAC the message (correctly!), and then place it on the correct queue.. This also no longer looked promising..

Targeting SYS

OK, how about the input of the next system down - the 'Payment System'?

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages To My

As described previously, the inbound data was a custom “application specific” payment instruction from the institutions back office systems, and not a SWIFT MT message. This would be an entirely new core concept I'd need to reverse - not ideal for this project.

But how about the output queue?

Although SYS received custom format data, I found that it output what seemed to be an initial SWIFT MT messages. This was perfect! Additionally, SYS did not have LAU between itself and MID because (unlike MID) SYS was not a SWIFT message partner, and was just one of many-many systems within the institution that formed their overall payment landscape.

Additionally, because SYS was esentially just one small piece of a much larger back office architecture, it was not part of the SWIFT Secure Zone (after all you cant have your entire estate in the Secure Zone - that defeats the purpose) and as such, made use of the Queue Manager within a more accessible section of the general corporate environment (QM1). Konica minolta bizhub c352 driver mac os xcompubrown recovery tool.

With this in mind, and having - in theory - compromised the MQ admin, I could leverage their access to access on the corporate network to authenticate to QM1. I could - in theory - then write a fraudulent payment message to the SYS “output” queue, which we will call “SYS_PAY_OUT_Q” from here on.

OK! It seems like I finally had an idea of what to do! But before I could put it into practice, I of course needed to create a diagram of the attack:

I think it’s important to take a minute to refer back to the concept of “trust” which is what lead to this attack diagram. My theory behind why this may work is because the MID application, implicitly trusts whatever it receives from its respective upstream systems. This is intentional, as by design the security model of the payment landscape ensures that: at any point a message can be created, a 4 (or 6) eye check is performed. If there was a system whose purpose it was to ensure the validity of a payment message at any point upstream, the downstream systems should have no real issue processing that message (with some exceptions). After all, It would be next to-impossible to maintain a high-throughput payment system without this design.

And with that said, the plan was now clear:

Leverage the access of a Message Queue administrator;

to abuse the “trust relationship” between SYS, MID, and SAA;

to introduce a fraudulent payment message directly on to the output queue of SYS;

by leaning on my new found understanding of complete MT103 payment messages.

It was finally time to try to demonstrate a Proof-of-Concept attack!

So at this point I believe I had everything I needed in order to execute the attack:

The target system!

The message format!

The queue manager!

The queue!

The access requirements!

The generously granted access to a fully functional SWIFT messaging architecture! (that’s a good one to have!)

The extra-generously granted support of various SMEs from the target institution! (This was even better to have!)

Message Forgery

I needed to begin by creating a valid payment message using valid details from the target institution. So before moving on I was provided with the following (Note: as with many things in this post, these details have been faked):

Debtor Account Details – John Doe, GB12EBNK88227712345678 at EBNKGB20

Creditor Account Details – Alice Smith, GB15EBNK88332287654321 at EBNKGB20

Some of you may have notice that the sending and receiving BIC’s are the same. This was because, for the sake of the research, I wanted to send the message back to the target institution via SWIFTNet so that I could analyse its full end-to-end message history. Furthermore, you may have noticed we are using 'test & training' BIC code (where the 8th character is a 0) - this was to make sure, you know, that I kept my job.

But yes, with access to these 'valid' account details and the knowledge gained during the research so far, I could now forge a complete Input MT103 messages:

Note: Field 33B is actually an optional field, however, the MT standard stated that “If the country codes of both the Sender’s and the Receiver’s BIC belong to the country code list, then field 33B is mandatory”. As such, if 33B was not present in the message, it would fail network validation rules and SWIFTNet would return a NAK with the error code: D49.

Optional / Mandatory fields aside, it was not quite that simple! There were a few minor changes I needed to make based on the specific point in the message's its life-cycle I was planning to introduce it!

As I list these changes, remember that the objective is to introduce the message to the output queue of SYS (Which exists before MID, SAA and SAG)

The first 3 blocks needed to be placed on a single line;

Remove field 121 (UETR) from the User Header, as this would be generated by SAA during processing;

Remove 1 character from the transaction reference as it needed to be exactly 16 characters (classic user error);

Add decimal point to transaction amount using a comma - otherwise it would fail syntax validation rules;

Ensure the IBAN's were real and accurate, otherwise it seemed the message would fail some type of signature validation on the SWIFT network. The IBANs are fake here, but during the real PoC we used accurate account details in collaboration with the target institution;

Remove the trailer block (5) - as this would be appended by SAA during processing;

Remove the System Block (S) - as this would be completed by the SAG.

And the final message was as follows:

Note that the location in which I introduce the message has resolved all of the 'issues / blockers' I'd tracked whilst researching the message structure! It would seem the further upstream you go, the easier the attack becomes - given MQ is still used as a transport medium.

Message Injection

Now I had my raw MT103 message, I just need to save it to a file (“Message.txt” - sure why not) and place onto the “SYS_PAY_OUT_Q” queue using one of the admin's tools:

With access to a sole MQ Administrator's AD account;

We connect to the MQ admins machine;

Log into the Jump Server;

Open our MQ tools of choice and authenticate to queue manager (QM1) where the output queue for SYS was managed;

Connected to the 'SYS_PAY_OUT_Q' queue;

Selected my forged “Message.txt” file;

Invoked the “write to queue” function;

And it was off!

Loggin in to Alliance Access and opening the message history tab, we sat awaiting for an update. Waiting, waiting, waiting… waiting… and..

ACK! It worked!

That's a joke; did we hell receive an ACK!

See, this last section is written slightly more 'linear' than what actually happened. Remember those 'tweaks' used to fix the message in the previous section? I hadn't quite figured that out yet..

So roughly seven NACKs later - each time troubleshooting and then fixing a different issues - we did indeed, see an ACK! The message was successfully processed by all systems, passed target system validation rules, passed sanctions and AML screening, passed SWIFTNet validation rules, and SWIFT’s regional processor had received the message and sent an 'Acknowledgement of receipt' response to the sending institution!

For the sake of completeness, I’ve included the ACK below:

And of course a breakdown of what it all means:

NameValueContextBasic Header Flag1Block 1Application TypeFF = FIN ApplicationMessage Type2121 = ACKInstitution CodeEBNKGB20AXXXEBNKGB20 (BIC) A (Logical Terminal) XXX (Branch)Sequence and Session No.19473923441947 (Sequence No.) 392344 (Session No.)Date Tag177200103 (Date) 1102 (Time)Accept / Reject Tag4510 = Accepted by SWIFTNet

Excellent! WooHoo! It worked! .. That took a lot of time and effort!

Closer Inspection

But the ACK wasn't enough, I wanted to make sure I understood what had happened to the message throughout its life-cycle. From the message I placed on the initial queue, to being processed by SWIFTNet.

Thankfully, as we sent the message back to the target institution we could see its entire message history. I already knew what the raw message placed on the queue looked like, so I wanted to focus on what became of the message once it had been processed by SAA:

The end-to-end tracking UUID had been generated and added (b42857ce-3931-49bf-ba34-16dd7a0c929f) in block 3;

The message trailer had been added ((5:(TNG:))) where I could see that - due to the BIC code used - SAA had flagged the message as 'test and training'.

Additionally, an initial System Block segment had been added ((S:(SPD:))), tagging the message as a possible duplicate. I wonder why - *cough* 7th attempt *cough*?

OK, so that was SAA. Now let’s see how it looked it once it passed through the Gateway and regional processor:

OK, we can see a few changes now.

The session and sequence numbers have been populated (1947392344);

The I/O identifier in block 2 has been updated to track that it is now an 'Output' message;

The additional data within Block 2 is a combination of the input time, date, BIC, session and sequence numbers, output date/time, and priority;

The trailer has been updated with a message authentication code (MAC) calculated based on the entire contents of the message using a pre-shared key and a secret algorithm;

Additionally, a checksum of the message body has been stored within the trailer’s “CHK” tag. This is used by the network to ensure message integrity.

I also took a look at the entire outbound message history, just to see all the “Success” and “No violation” statements to make it feel even more awesome!

So that's that really..

With a bit of research and support I was able to demonstrate a PoC for introducing a fraudulent payment message to move funds from one account to another, by manually forging a raw SWIFT MT103 single customer credit transfer message, and leveraging various system trust relationships to do a lot of the hard work for me! https://arfox158.tumblr.com/post/655263262721638400/wireless-external-hard-drive-for-mac.

As mentioned briefly in the introduction, this is not something I have really seen or heard of happening in practice or in the 'wild'. Perhaps because it clearly takes a lot of work.. and there is a huge margin for error. However, if an adversary has spent enough time inside your network and has had access to the right documentation and resources, this may be a viable attack vector. It definitely has its benefits:

No need to compromise multiple payment operators;

No requirement to compromise - or establish a foothold within - the SWIFT Secure Zone;

No requirement to bypass MFA and gain credentials for a messaging interface;

No generation of application user activity logs;

No payment application login alerts;

No bespoke app-specific and tailored malware;

And all the other things associated with the complex task of gaining and leveraging payment operator access.

All an attacker may need to do is compromise one specific user on the corporate network: a Message Queue administrator.

The industry is spending a lot of time and effort focused on securing their payment systems, applications, processes, and users to keep - among other things - payment operators safe, Messaging Interfaces locked down, and SWIFT systems isolated. But the reality is,; the most valuable and most powerful individual in the entire model, might just be a single administrator!

As always, a security model is only as strong as its weakest link. If you're not applying the same level of security to your wider institution, there may very well be many weak links within the wider network which chain together and lead to the comrpomise of systems which feed into your various payment environment.

I think the main thing to remember when reflecting on this research is that it did not abuse any vulnerabilities within the target institution's systems, or even vulnerabilities or weaknesses within the design of their architecture. It simply leverages the legitimate user access of the Message Queue administrators and the trust relationships that exist by design within these types of large-scale payment processing systems.

So the harsh reality is, there is no particular list of recommendations for preventing this type of attack in itself. However, the main point to drive home is that you must ensure the security of your users - and overall organisation - is of a high enough standard to protect your highest privileged users from being compromised. Things such as:

Strong monitoring and alerting controls for anomalous behaviour;

Requirements for Multi-Factor authentication for access to critical infrastructure;

Segregation of critical infrastructure from the wider general IT network;

Strong password policies;

Well rehearsed incident detection and incident response policies and procedures;

Frequent high-quality security awareness training of staff;

Secure Software Development training for your developers;

Routine technical security assessments of all critical systems and components;

The use of 3rd party software from reputable and trusted vendors;

However, in the context of Message Queues, there is one particular control which I think is extremely valuable: The implementation of channel specific message signing! This, as demonstrated by SWIFT's LAU control, is a good way in which to ensure the authenticity of a message.

As discussed, LAU is - as far as I know at the time of writing - a SWIFT product / message partner specific control. However it's concept is universal and could be implemented in many forms, two of which are:

Update your in-house application's to support message signing, natively;

Develop a middleware component which performs message signing on each system, locally.

This is a complex requirement as it requires considerable effort on the client’s behalf to implement either approach. However, SWIFT provides guidance within their Alliance Access Developers guide on how to implement LAU in Java, Objective C, Scala and Swift;

Strip any S block from the FIN message input. Keep only blocks 1: through 5;

Use the FIN message input as a binary value (unsigned char in C language, byte in Java). The FIN message input must be coded in the ASCII character set;

Combine the left LAU key and the right LAU key as one string. The merged LAU key must be used as a binary value (unsigned char in C language, byte in Java). The merged LAU key must be coded in the ASCII character set;

Call a HMAC256 routine to compute the hash value. The hash value must also be treated as a binary value (unsigned char in C language, byte in Java). The HMAC size is 32 bytes;

Convert the HMAC binary values to uppercase hexadecimal printable characters.

An example of how this may work in the more flexible middleware solution proposed is where the original service is no longer exposed to the network, and is altered to only communicate directly with the custom 'LAU-eqsue' service on its local host. This service would then sign and route the message to its respective queue.

When received, the core of the recipient payment service would seek to retrieve its messages from the queues via the 'LAU-esque' signing middleware, which would retrieve the message and subsequently verify its origin and authenticity by re-calculating the signature using their shared (secret) keys. Key-pairs could further be unique per message flow. This design could allow for the signing to be used as a way to validate the origin of a message even if it had passed through multiple (local) intermediary systems.

As a final bit of creative effort, I made yet another diagram to represent what this could perhaps look like - if life was as easy as a diagram:

If you made it this far thanks for reading all.. ~6k words!? I hope you found some of them interesting and maybe learned a thing or two!

I'd like express our gratitude to the institution who facilitated this research, as well as specifically to the various SMEs within that institution who gave their valuable time to support it throughout.

Fineksus - SWIFT Standard Changes 2019

https://fineksus.com/swift-mt-standard-changes-2019/

Paiementor - SWIFT MT Message Structure Blocks 1 to 5

https://www.paiementor.com/swift-mt-message-structure-blocks-1-to-5/

SEPA for corporates - The Difference between a SWIFT ACK and SWIFT NACK

https://www.sepaforcorporates.com/swift-for-corporates/quick-guide-swift-mt101-format/

SEPA for corporates - Explained: SWIFT gpi UETR – Unique End-to-End Transaction Reference

https://www.sepaforcorporates.com/swift-for-corporates/explained-swift-gpi-uetr-unique-end-to-end-transaction-reference/

M DIBA - LAU for SWIFT Message Partners

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lau-swift-message-partners-mohammad-diba-1/

Prowide - About SWIFT

https://www.prowidesoftware.com/about-SWIFT.jsp

5m Mathmrs. Mac's Messages For Her

Microsoft - SWIFT Schemas

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/adapters-and-accelerators/accelerator-swift/swift-schemas

SWIFT FIN Guru - SWIFT message block structure

http://www.swiftfinguru.com/2017/02/swift-message-block-structure.html

2 notes · View notes

theliberaltony · 5 years ago

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Do the autopsies of George Floyd agree, or not? News reports from last week suggest the report produced by the Hennepin County medical examiner and the one produced by an examiner hired by Floyd’s family disagreed on his cause of death. The county ruled the cause to be “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” It also cited heart disease and drug use as factors that could have contributed to the death. The secondary autopsy, by contrast, specifically said Floyd died from asphyxia.

So who is right? Well, both of them, experts who weren’t affiliated with the case said. In fact, according to forensic pathologists and medical experts, the two autopsy reports aren’t actually all that different in their conclusions. “They are just different ways of describing the same thing,” said Dr. Joye Carter, forensic pathologist to the sheriff of San Luis Obispo County, California. What’s more, experts told me, the autopsies of George Floyd help show the complexity of medical examinations, how those examinations work and what they can and cannot tell us.

Some of the public confusion over Floyd’s autopsy reports can be blamed on misinterpretation by the media and the public, said Dr. Judy Melinek, a San Francisco-based forensic pathologist . “Anybody suggesting asphyxia was ruled out by the medical examiner is wrong,” she said. Indeed, lots of people suggested just that, with media describing the reports as “drastically different” and nearly describing the county report as absolving the white police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s back for 8 minutes.

The Hennepin County autopsy may have mentioned factors beyond police conduct, but it was really just saying Floyd’s heart stopped while police were restraining him and pressing on his neck, said Melinek, Carter and Dr. Michael Freeman, professor of forensic medicine and epidemiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. It’s not a claim that he died of a heart attack, drugs, or pre-existing conditions, they told me. “The cause of death is police restraint,” Melinek said, just like in the autopsy Floyd’s family commissioned.

The reason it might seem like the exams disagree, they said, is because people expect a single cause of death in an autopsy report. But most people don’t die from just one thing. Instead, both death certificates and autopsy evaluations are set up to tell as detailed a story as possible — death happened, as a result of something, complicated by another thing, and maybe with other factors that were present. You’re supposed to compile the full chain of events and all the possible compounding factors. But documenting potential contributing factors isn’t the same as saying that’s what caused the death.

These reports — and the public confusion around them — also highlight how complex forensic pathology can really be. Take the confusion over asphyxiation. As he was dying, Floyd told the police officers that he couldn’t breathe, eventually stopped speaking and then went limp. So it surprised a lot of people when the autopsy reports came across as saying that they’d found no evidence of asphyxiation.

That is both a misunderstanding of the report and an example of the difficulty in identifying cause of death, experts said. It’s a misunderstanding because an earlier legal document, put out to explain the charges against the officer who kneeled on Floyd, said the county had found no injuries consistent with asphyxia caused by physical trauma. But the actual autopsy report doesn’t mention the word “asphyxia” at all. It does, however, describe “neck compression” as a direct cause of Floyd’s death — meaning the blood flow (and, thus, oxygen) to Floyd’s brain and heart were cut off. It doesn’t take physical trauma to asphyxiate someone.

And that’s where the difficulty of pinning down cause of death comes in, said Dr. Karl Williams, a forensic pathologist who is the chief medical examiner of Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. “After that video we know why he died,” Williams said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean, OK, that there’s going to be any evidence of that.” You can make someone lose consciousness just by compressing the arteries and veins in their neck, cutting off blood flow to and from the brain, he told me. Williams said he has watched experts demonstrate this effect at conferences. People will lose consciousness after 7-to-10 seconds, he said. “It’s very reproducible. We vary on where the point of no return would be, but if you block those veins for three to four minutes, you’re dead.”

But there’s no medical literature of what happens to a person’s body when someone kneels on their neck for more than eight minutes, as Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer now charged with second-degree murder, did to Floyd. So no medical examiner can call up that data and compare it to what they found in Floyd’s body, Williams told me. The result, he said, has been whole listserves full of medical examiners going over the evidence in the Floyd case and arguing back and forth for the past week about how they would write the report. “There certainly is individual variety,” Carter said. “Medicine is a practice and everything isn’t rubber stamped the same way.”

Everybody agrees Floyd’s death was a homicide, Williams told me. But when you get to the specific cause of death, and the order of priority of multiple causes, subjectivity comes into play. “If you were to present that video to 100 different board certified forensic pathologists, you’d get 20, 30, 40 different ways of turning that into the statement of death,” he said. “This happens with about 5-to-10 percent of the cases we do.”

Another good example of an issue where forensic pathologists don’t agree: the existence of a controversial diagnosis — “excited delirium” — which was discussed by the officers at the scene of Floyd’s death. (Neither of Floyd’s autopsies mentioned the condition and none of the experts I spoke to believe it applies to him.) The basic idea behind excited delirium is that someone who is high on stimulants, such as cocaine or methamphetamines, can get into a place where their mind is no longer functioning normally. “They become agitated and violent and hyperthermic, so their body temperature goes up and they undress and act inappropriately. They might break glass and be unaware of their environment. They’re hallucinating,” Melinek said. That situation can often lead to someone being restrained by multiple police officers while they fight back violently. Sometimes the person dies — and the death ends up attributed to excited delirium, rather than to the restraint.

Melinek, Carter and Williams all believe this is a real diagnosis that really does cause death in some situations — though Carter added that restraint can contribute to those deaths. But Freeman isn’t so sure excited delirium is a legitimate cause of death. The dead people diagnosed with it tend to be young, black males who died in police custody, he said. “There’s been cases where the [medical examiner] has done an exam, found 12 broken ribs, a history of extreme restraint and all sorts of things going on,” he said. “But they find a relatively small amount, a recreational level of methamphetamine in the blood and they say, ‘Oh it’s excited delirium.’ Which completely exculpates the law enforcement from causing the death, which they clearly did.” Freeman’s research team currently has a paper in the process of being published that reviews scientific studies comparing excited delirium with cases of agitated delirium syndrome — a medical diagnosis that gets applied more by doctors treating a person who lived, while excited delirium is primarily used by forensic pathologists examining a person who died.

While both syndromes present with roughly the same symptoms, Freeman’s team found that restraint was used in 90 percent of the cases that turned out to be fatal. Only 2 percent of fatal cases involved no restraints. (The rest were unknown.) Forceful restraints such as manhandling or hog-tying were also significantly more likely in fatal cases. The point, Freeman said, is that there’s evidence it’s not the excited delirium that kills people. It’s the way they are restrained.

All the experts I spoke to see no evidence of excited delirium in Floyd’s case. In the video of his death, Melinek pointed out, you can clearly see that he is not sweating excessively, nor is he dressed inappropriately. He communicates clearly with officers and bystanders and is coherent even as he is pleading for his life. But the fact that one of the officers at the scene suggested this diagnosis, and that legal scholars believe it will come up in Chauvin’s defense, demonstrates how medical analysis can be used in cases like this. And how disagreement among forensic pathologists about how to describe the evidence in a case can muddy the legal waters.

“There are very few checks and balances, and that’s really the issue here,” Freeman said. “There’s nobody to second guess your work [as a medical examiner]. If there is somebody doing something in a biased fashion — systematically always doing it wrong … it’s disadvantaged populations who are getting these diagnoses.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Maggie Koerth

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cowtale-utau · 5 years ago

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Sans/Ace INTJ vs ENTP

Welp this is not the full breakdown I’m working on but. This is contributing to that? I was asked about my type choice (which I super don’t mind! I love a good debate) and this will help in breaking down that part of the full work up. It’s super friggin long. I’d apologize, but I wouldn’t really mean it. Anyway, here we go.

First lets look at the functional stacks

INTJ / NiFeTiSe (NiTe) vs ENTP / NeTiFeSi (NeTi)

Ni – Internal intuition vs Ne – Extroverted intuition

Sans is suspiciously intuitive. There was no argument that Intuitive was going to be part of his typing. How the intuition functions and is used is where we have some point of potential debate. This comes down in many ways to how Jung viewed extroversion vs introversion. Extroverts are characterized as expansive and expressive, with short attention spans and rapidly shifting focus. They also tend to have relationships characterized by breath as opposed to depth. That is, many, more “shallow” relationships, rather than fewer, “deeper” connections. Conversely introverts are more focused and narrow, spending more time and energy on fewer things they give more value. Ne tends to have a wider range of hobbies and skills, while never focusing enough to master any, while Ni tends to develop mastery in fewer, selected areas. Ne also tends to want to bounce topics and visit many areas of conversation, while Ni wants to focus in on a singular topic to explore as deeply as possible. Ne wants to have many options while Ni wants to zero in on one singular answer.

Honestly, you can see traces of both Ne and Ni in Sans personality. He has a broad range of skills, and a pretty large number of arguably shallow “friendships”. He also keeps a very small number of deeper, more developed relationships, and there is evidence of him having a few areas he has a much deeper knowledge of.

Getting into the real differences is easier when you pair Ni/Ne with their respective sidekicks. Thus we have NiSe and NeSi. If we go by type theory Ni uses information Se has subconsciously gathered to find patterns and themes in their environment. They cast a wide sensory net to take clues from all possible inputs, visual, auditory, etc. They then use this data to compile a narrow underlying pattern. Conversely NeSi, draws on repeated snapshots of experiences to compile an established pattern to put forth a range of possible “what ifs”.

A simplification of what separates Ni from Ne can be put as such; Ni is insight, Ne is ingenuity. Both E and I express intuition in their focus on the metaphysical and theoretical. NJ's can be seen as less creative while NP's are less able to come up with convergent ideas. ENPs see several potentials in everything, they struggle to trace back to a single causality. ENPs often take a “spray and pray” method, and are surprised should they hit upon the correct answer. They won't likely trust this as the true answer until they've tested and exhausted all possibilities.

INTJ and ENTP functions are perfect flips of one another and are often mis-typed.

INTJ: Dominant: Introverted Intuition Auxilliary: Extraverted Thinking Tertiary: Introverted Feeling Inferior: Extraverted Sensing ENTP: Dominant: Extraverted Intuition Auxiliary: Introverted Thinking Tertiary: Extraverted Feeling Inferior: Introverted Sensing

Personally I'm inclined to lean towards Ni for Sans, but both are viable options. In fact both are so viable, that this breakdown wasn't particularly helpful. But it was interesting, and fun so I'm not mad I did it. So lets try this from a different angle. This time I'm going to ignore “stacks” and look at the purely E vs I, T vs P, etc break downs, and include my personal opinions on them, and how I got to the choice I did for Sans.

Introversion vs Extroversion

E – Energy is outward, towards people and things. Gains energy by being with people, batteries drain when alone. Need stimulation and are expressive. Like variety, action, and achievement. Communicate openly without censure. Allow conversation without conclusion. Take words at face value.

I – Energy focused inwards, towards ideas and concepts. Recharge with “me time”, drained by crowds and company. Tend to be reserved, and can seem subtle or “impenetrable”. Think before they act, often taking time to make a decision.

When I first typed Sans I had to ask, is he an introvert, or just depressed. I think it cannot be argued whether or not Sans suffers from depression. The indicators are there. It is a widely accepted view. However, I do not believe this excludes him from being an introvert. I see Sans as a social introvert. He likes people in general, enjoys crowds, from a comfortable distance. He keeps most relationships at arms length, and needs time alone to recoup. Sans is a very guarded and reserved individual, who can play at being an open book. He deflects with jokes and entertainment, but how many can say they are genuinely close to Sans. Even Papyrus is kept at a certain distance despite Sans clear love for his brother. I think Sans is kinda the poster child for the misconception that introverts are isolationists that hate people. They (cough we cough) aren't. They just need time to themselves to reorient, and re-energize. And that doesn't necessarily mean complete isolation either. This can often be achieved in the company of those held especially dear, or by simply withdrawing, even around company. This can be seen in Sans choosing to be at Grillby's but choosing a somewhat “closed” location. Yes he's towards the center of the room, but he's at the corner of the bar. He directly faces only Grillby. Or a common fanon example, Sans shutting down and allowing himself to be lugged around by Papyrus. He stays physically present, and is likely taking in the going ons, but has disengaged on a personal/social level.

Intuiting vs Sensing

S – Focus on immediate thought and sensory input. Trust conscious, limiting to facts and solid data. Pay attention to immediate, material, practical and “real”. Work on a clear schedule and use logic to work in a direct sequence. Practical, realistic, grounded, direct.

N – Process data on a deep, subconscious level, trusting “gut feelings”. Spot patterns and take broad high level “big picture” views. Enjoy ideas and theories, are willing to work with factual evidence on a “instinct”. Change and adapt plans as information changes.

While I suppose an argument could be made for either I'm inclined to pin Sans as an N. Especially if one dismisses the “Sans remembers resets” theory. One cannot deny he uses facial cues and behaviors to make “gut” predictions about the player character/Frisk. Sans does not strike me as one to stick to any schedule not externally enforced by others (Papyrus). He doesn't need solid proof to make an accurate assessment, and trusts his own instincts. Somewhat unrelated to current discussion but one could argue a case for Sans having some almost... Arrogance in this regard. He is so confident in his assessment that he calls you on it, despite having no solid, in hand, proof of any of his accusations. This is a man who trusts his own mind.

Thinking vs Feeling

T – Thing logically and with reason. Desire fairness and objectivity. Black/White mentality. Seek truth and clear use of the rules. Sometimes forget or dismiss the “person” variable. Prefer truth over tact. Analyze pros and cons, and when a decision is made, consider it done.

F – Make decisions based on the feelings and considerations of others. The 'person' element is the first and primary considered. Value harmony, and try to be tactful even at the cost of some truth. Some times overlook the “hard” facts and can come off idealistic.

Here's another area where both typings agree. Sans is very much to me a T. Despite his apparent “easy to get along with” nature he can clearly lack tact (as seen in his 'you'd be dead where you stand' line). It's clear he is capable of dismissing the “people” component as seen in a neutral run. Even if you are to kill his brother there is little reaction beyond a few (or single, I'm slightly tipsy and my memory sucks) lines about his upset. This could theoretically be blamed on the nihilism/depression we see present, but could also be tied into his objective way of thinking (and if one considers that he's at least distantly aware that the outcome isn't permanent than this way further leans into T type. He knows it isn't the end, and so can accept that even if his brother is dead now, he won't be later, allowing him to remove emotion from the equation). If his magic coloring is tied into the presented soul traits the desire for fairness and objectivity is clearly seen in his secondary (?) Justice trait. I also believe Sans very much has a Black/White view of morality/the world. You can see this in the neutral run. While he may not attack you in anything less than No Mercy/Genocide, he definitely calls you out. Even just reaching LV of 2 is enough for Sans to express disgust in both you and your actions. This suggests he has absolutely no leniency in his views.

Judging vs Perceiving

J – Decisive and controlled. Are rigid and take charge of their environments, making choices early. Specific in what they ask, and expect others to do as told. Seek order and closure. Like to have time for preparation. Enjoy being experts.

P – Feel limited by structure. Feel more in control when options are left open. Thrive with the unexpected and are open to change. Tend to be loose and casual. Work in bursts. Are tolerant of people differences and will adapt to fit a situation.

And here's the other where the two potential types vary. And I can see a case for either. Its when all the parts are taken in together that I lean towards J over P. (although if we went with the percentages system I could see him as being fairly close, and sometimes slipping one way or the other over the line. I've know a couple of people personally who do so every now and then. A close friend of mine regularly tests at 51/49 in their J/P alternating between INFJ and INFP) I think when balancing Sans' N and T it comes together more comfortably in J. His rigid morality suggests a lack of tolerance and adaptability. Once he starts something, he sees it through to completion. His desire for the cycle of resets to be stopped can be seen as a need for closure, but I think we can dismiss it as extenuating circumstances. Anyone would want it to stop after a fashion, even if they are only distantly aware of the occurrence. I think Sans straddles the J/P line leaning slightly more into J. He needs order and routine, but is stiffed by too rigid of a structure. I think for me this ultimately came down to me viewing Sans (or perhaps Ace in this case) as an ultimately science leaning mind. He needs answers. He needs clear, clean answers, and not getting them is distressing. While he may like to keep his options open in some areas of his life, overall he prefers to know what he's getting into, and how he's going to handle it. He's a free personality, that dislikes an unpredictable world. He wants to know where the end is, and have several methods of getting there. Not knowing the answers is scary, and Sans/Ace hates being scared.

So there's that. I don't know if any of it made any sense, but there you have it. How I typed Sans and why. Bare in mind, that this is also a half fanon typing. This is at least in part, based on occurrences after the events of canon Undertale, and how Sans/Ace behaved then. (you’ll see more of that in his full workup) As well as being based on some headcanons, though I tried to be fairly sparing with them. I also find myself frustrated as to the lack of information on Sans behavior/personality prior to the events of the game. What was Sans like, before the resets, before the depression. I would love to see what Sans had been like when he was younger. Alas, this is unlikely to ever happen. But anywho, this got way long, and if you manage to actually get through the whole thing I would love to hear your opinions. How do you type Sans, and why? Is there some glaring in game clue I missed? I'm totally open to friendly discussion on the topic, if you want. I included a couple links that give a pretty good rundown of the different functions and how they come together.

https://www.typeinmind.com/nite

https://www.typeinmind.com/neti

#Undertale #Sans #Cowtale #Ace #mbti #personality analysis #character study #long post

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chibivesicle · 6 years ago

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Why is Yuusaku so awkward with Ogata?

Something that has been bothering me since the start is in regards to the relationship between Yuusaku and Ogata. The nice thing about having the break between chapters 188 and 189 is it has given everyone’s brains some time to settle and ponder things other than the arrow in Ogata’s right eye. . . .

It has always appeared to me that the relationship between Yuusaku and Ogata was rather one-sided. I definitely do not have the general take that the Japanese fanbase has, where Yuusaku is this pure angel individual (okay so more like the Yuusaku fanart community).

It is clear in the chapter 103 revisions from the tankoban, that more scenes were added in to explain Ogata’s statement about Yuusaku and the difference between an individual raised by two parents and an individual abandoned by parents or born out of situation where the parents are not both their to raise the individual.

People have spent a lot of time and effort in trying to determine what is going on between Yuusaku and Ogata and what Ogata was able to conclude from his interactions with him.

Ogata’s body language and implied overall avoidance of Yuusaku really indicates that he did not want to associate with Yuusaku or want to be seen with him (unless ordered by Tsurumi). Ogata clearly saw that he was a well respected man and a model second lt. and flag bearer.

We still do not know how Yuusaku found out Ogata was Hanazawa’s illegitimate child, but it is clear that Yuusaku didn’t understand how trying to strike up a brotherly relationship with Ogata likely wasn’t going to go over well. From what Ogata tells Hanazawa, Ogata and his mother were officially “dumped” by him when Yuusaku was born. He had a legal heir and he did not want to be found out for having an affair with a geisha for the fear it would sully his reputation.

What has always struck me as odd is how Yuusaku couldn’t figure out that there might be a reason why he never knew about his older brother and why he never met him until in the 27th. Yuusaku comes from an elite family. I’m sure he knew about gossip and rumors and all sorts of class related things to realize he father wouldn’t want to let it become public that he had an illegitimate child who was out in Ibaraki.

Ogata assumes that part of his personality comes from his own assumption that Hanazawa and Yuusaku’s unnamed mother loved each other. In some ways, it is kinda cute b/c Ogata grew up as a commoner, he was in an environment where people could marry for love if they desired (not saying it is 100% possible, but marriages weren’t for political reasons and producing an heir). I wonder if this in part a reason why he took not being loved by his mother and father so hard? Did he see other families in his area where there was evidence of love. I will say that b/c his grandma went as far as bringing both him and his mother back home, she was a grandma who loved them. I think it also implies that grandma was the “head” of the household, so, go grandma Ogata. She likely took on his mom’s debt and hence her working hard and leaving him home alone with his mom to provide for both of them.

What is interesting is that when Yuusaku finds out that Ogata is his brother he’s like;

“Wow!!!I’vealwayswantedanoldersibling,andweshouldtotallyhangout andbondlikesiblings!!!!!”

The idea that Yuusaku’s very existence might have lead to Ogata’s less than ideal upbringing doesn’t even seem to register with Yuusaku. Instead, it is clear he kept trying to be friends with him, break protocol and all him older brother and make all sorts of awkward for Ogata. What is very clear is how awkward Ogata’s body language is with him all the time and Yuusaku is just out to lunch.

So I’m only going to drop one panel in this meta and it is this one right here.

This is from when Ogata goes out for night on the town with Yuusaku (at what is clearly Tsurumi’s orders). When Ogata invites Yuusaku out, you can see him blushing as he’s just so excited to have the chance to interact with Ogata outside of the context of the military. I guess they went out for dinner or something before they head to the brothel. The whole point of this trip is to determine if Yuusaku is able to give into temptation and have sex even though he is expected to remain a virgin as the flag bearer.

So, I’ve read this panel over and over and over to figure out what the deal with Yuusaku is. Why can’t he read Ogata? Why is he driven to keep doing what he wants to do based on his feelings? And then I came back to what Ogata tells him:

The flag bearer is handsome, a high achiever, a paragon of moral virtue. . . . basically, they’re the face of the regiment.

We haven’t seen Yuusaku’s full face, but Ogata’s an attractive guy (well, his mom would also have to be attractive based on her former profession), and Yuusaku is a taller and a more nutritionally balanced man with a rather smooth complexion. So we will assume he’s an attractive looking guy too. He also states that this individual must be a paragon of moral virtue, so someone who will uphold the rules, serve as an example to others and also implied to be a virgin by not giving into temptation so to speak.

So now I’m going to come back to what he said in the middle, “a high achiever”. Yuusaku attended the military college with the full intent to enter the military at the age of 21 as a second lieutenant. This means that Yuusaku would have been well educated, he’d learn a foreign language as a future officer and all sorts of military specific knowledge as well as becoming more cultured as an individual. But then it finally struck me, Yuusaku is known to be a high achiever. What does this mean? Yuusaku was a nerd! He had to have performed well in all of his coursework and the military academy and done very well for himself in all of his assignments and whatnot.

And then things finally clicked in my brain. Yuusaku was raised in an affluent household, so he was raised in a sheltered environment. He was likely tutored and educated as a child and kept busy with all sorts of activities to benefit his future career as a solider. He likely excelled at all of these things and was a good little son doing everything he was asked to do. Since he excelled in his studies, it shows that he was academically an intelligent person. But he’s an individual who exists in a very small and simple bubble for most of his life.

Why to I feel bold enough to think this was Yuusaku’s background? I’ve been working with people like him for years. I have many colleagues who are very intelligent people and academic high achievers. They are very focused on doing their job and being very excited and into it. But most of these people lack what are known as soft skills, and when presented with a situation outside of social behaviors that exist to maintain the social construct that we exist in are very awkward.

Many of these people cannot “read a room” so to speak. They are weak at reading other people’s body language. They miss verbal cues. They lack the ability to read between the lines. I’ve sat through so many meetings where several of these people are talking to each other but no one is getting what the other person is saying and it just becomes this awkward conversation that an entire room is subject to. Someone else will try to steer things in another direction but it goes right over their heads b/c they still aren’t getting it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Yuusaku is one of these people. He’s intelligent and has done well in a very specific context. But, it looks like despite how smart and good he is at following the rules, he likely lacks good people skills and soft skills. It was clear in chapter 165 that he was very good at being the cheerleader for the regiment and following a very tightly defined role to the absolute best of his ability. What is interesting is that as a flag bearer he only needs to lead by being inspirational and a symbol or as Ogata will later imply an “idol” for the regiment. But Yuusaku’s role is the complete opposite of what Tsurumi is doing as a first lieutenant. Tsurumi is always talking to his men, he’s got them doing different roles within the 27th; we see many of the men hanging back in the trenches, the more wild ones like the Nikaido brothers and Noma and Okada are shown running behind Yuusaku towards the Russians, while it appears he primarily had Ogata sniping from far behind in the trenches. This may have in part been due to his eventual plans to use Ogata as his personal hitman, but he clearly determined what each of his men was good at doing and put them in the appropriate place. Tsurumi is exceptionally good at reading people. Tsurumi is likely even more intelligent than Yuusaku was (as a spy) but he also possessed the soft skills to be a very effective leader and to use his personnel in the best way possible.

This is why I think in chapter 165, Yuusaku is unable to understand what is happening between him and Ogata. This likely is some sort of test of Yuusaku’s character (I mean Ogata by himself couldn’t hide a Russian POW and pull him out onto the battlefield without someone on authority turning a blind eye to them e.g. Tsurumi). The fact that Yuusaku is really hung up on the fact that they are breaking the rules indicates to me two things; 1.) he was raised in an environment where this concept was unthinkable and looked down upon 2.) he also does not have a type of intelligence that is flexible and adaptive. Many intelligent people are successful b/c they figure out when the rules help them and when the rules hinder them; they determine when it is a good idea to break the rules.

Furthermore, his response to Ogata’s own personal coping mechanism is so childish and simplistic. He says it can’t be possible for someone to not feel guilty for killing another person. He can say this without thinking what could be going on in Ogata’s head b/c he can only draw from his own sheltered and protected childhood and education and what was clearly imposed on him from their father. In part, Yuusaku doesn’t know any better, but in part it is due to his very limited life experiences and likely being too much of a nerd to be able to read those around him.

I’ve often wondered why Hanazawa let Yuusaku become a flag bearer. All of Hanazawa’s actions indicated that he’s incredibly image conscious and aware of how he is perceived by others. He is a man from a lineage of military men (which Tsurumi and others cite in reference to Ogata’s skills and drive) so it makes sense that Yuusaku is also in the military. But for him to be a flag bearer implies that he likely will not survive to advance in his military career. For a man with only one legitimate male heir, who comes from a long line of military men this concept baffles me. If he had two [legitimate] sons, then I could see grooming one to take a leadership role like himself and another becoming a flag bearer for family honor bonus points. God that sounds terrible, but I see Hanazawa as that type of man.

So I’ve wondered why Hanazawa would let his only son that he recognized and invested so much time and resources in be a giant target to the Russians? I’ve wondered if he saw that Yuusaku lacked the skills to be an effective leader and this was the best use of him as an heir - to be the honorable flag bearer and not to embarrass the family by being a poor military commander (which Hanazawa ultimately was). This seems horribly cold and calculating for Hanazawa’s own pathetic ego, but he comes off as the type of man who could do that.

I also think that is why Koito’s father is so insistent on making sure that Koito learns to be an effective leader of men. If you are able to have the privilege to be a person in the position of power in the military (the elite) than it is best for you to learn how to lead your men not only for your own and the military’s success but for the success of those individual men. We know Admiral Koito was friends with Lt. General Hanazawa, I’m sure he watched the parenting that Hanazawa did and may have seen Yuusaku’s personality and then looked at Koito’s own personality.

I do think that b/c Yuusaku took his duties as a flag bearer seriously as well as being 100% obedient to Hanazawa and being able to essentially uphold a contradiction, that he made such an impression on Ogata. Even though there were many aspects of Yuusaku that Ogata clearly did not like, he is not the type of person to hate him for who he was. I think instead Ogata did respect him in his dedication to following the rules of their father and upholding the standards of the flag bearer. What Ogata likely wasn’t able to see was that Yuusaku was trapped in that role and likely had no other options. Ogata can only see Yuusaku as a son who followed his father’s intentions to his ultimate death on the battlefield.

Lastly, I think the juxtaposition between Yuusaku and Ogata’s personalities and backgrounds are supposed to highlight that Ogata was likely the “rightful heir” to follow Hanazawa in the military. Hanazawa, due to his own ego, abandoned Ogata and when he joined the military, was as a lowly private with no chance for leadership. But based on Ogata’s abilities, intelligence and skills, backed up by the statements made by Tsurumi, we are likely supposed to read that Ogata “inherited” the ability to be yet another Hanazawa military commander if given the right circumstances.

#golden kamuy #gk meta #hanazawayuusaku #hanazawakoujiro #ogata hyakunosuke #koito otonoshin

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architectnews · 5 years ago

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Sustainable Architecture: Climate Change

Sustainable Architecture, Eco Buildings, Climate Change, Green Building Opinion, Architects, Links

Sustainable Architecture Design News

Green Building: Ecological Architectural Debate – CO2 Emissions Reduction News

11 Dec 2020

Climate Action Friday 11 December

Climate Action – #FridaysForFuture

#FridaysForFuture is a movement that began in August 2018, after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament every schoolday for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. She posted what she was doing on Instagram and Twitter and it soon went viral.

Construction is responsible for 23% of the world’s GHG emissions,

it is incumbent on the architecture profession to help lead the way to a better future,

not only lower carbon, but also less pollution,

get involved!

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photo courtesy of #FridaysForFuture

24 Nov 2020

City Mayors Pledge Sustainable Construction

C40 Cities connects 97 of the world’s greatest cities

Commit to Clean Construction, Moving the Industry Towards a Sustainable Future

Four leading mayors are initial signatories to C40 Clean Construction Declaration, pledging to work with industry to halve emissions from construction projects in their cities by 2030

C40 Clean Construction Declaration

Sustainable Buildings News

Contemporary Green Architecture Design – selection of posts:

Net Zero Carbon Buildings News photo courtesy Anders Vestergaard Jensen, unsplash Net Zero Carbon Buildings

Zero-carbon Interiors

Zero Carbon Buildings 2050 Report

House of Lords Zero Carbon Homes Ruling

2020: The Year of Net Zero photo © Richard Glover / Matt Estherby Sustainable Building News : Zero-Energy updates

Climate and Biodiversity Emergency photo : Tim Griffith Climate and Biodiversity Emergency

Eco House Bolton

Zero Carbon House in Birmingham, UK Dec 17, 2019

Forcing Sustainable Buildings Via Legislation

Architects as Guardians of the Environment

It’s official:

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In California and other states, all new housing must be green in 2020. All other building types will follow in short order.

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This is the greatest opportunity ever offered to architects, engineers, and contractors.

The laws have been written; they’re about to be implemented throughout the U.S. and major cities around the world.

The key links in implementation are architects and green consultants who will be leading the way in their roles as guardians of the environment.

The San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) is still the leader in green architecture degree programs, technical short courses, and continuing education.

SFIA’s students, graduates, and faculty build, teach, publish books, and design the most sustainable buildings on the planet.

Although their courses are all online now, SFIA draws on the resources of the world-renowned faculty. (All posted at www.sfia.net.)

To help prepare for the most extraordinary opportunities in architectural history, SFIA is now offering extra- low scholarship-level tuitions for degrees in architecture, green building design and construction, project management—and the very popular Master of Science in Green Building and Sustainability (MSGB).

We invite you to see what’s new at www.sfia.net, and if you haven’t already done so, please join with our world class students, graduates, and educators in truly helping to change the world for the better.

Fred A. Stitt, Architect San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) [email protected] www.sfia.net

SFIA Box 2590 Alameda, CA 94501 1-800-634-7779

Dec 5, 2019

Climate Justice Groups Denounce Carbon Markets

Climate Justice Groups Denounce Carbon Markets with a Day of Protest at COP25 in Madrid

MADRID — On Thursday, December 5, 2019, climate justice organizations will lead a day of protest against carbon markets at COP25, calling to keep this false solution out of the Paris rulebook.

WHAT: Climate justice groups denounce carbon markets with day of protest at COP25 WHEN: Thursday 5 December, 10:00 – 10.30 am WHERE: Entrance of Hall 4, IFEMA Blue Zone, Madrid WHO: Climate justice organizations including Friends of the Earth International, Indigenous Environmental Network, La Via Campesina, Asia People’s Movement on Debt and Development, It Takes Roots, SustainUS, Corporate Accountability International, and many more.

Article 6.2 and 6.4, about rules for carbon markets, will be key items on the negotiating table at COP25 in Madrid. A resolution is likely to be sold by polluting countries and corporations as a “solution” to global warming. In reality, carbon markets are a false solution—they have never, and will never, deliver on emissions reductions. Instead, they enable ‘business-as-usual’ and pose a grave threat to Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities globally.

From 10.00 – 10.30 am in the entrance of hall 4, at the IFEMA blue zone, the organizations will stage a theatre sketch about the destruction brought by carbon markets and carbon offsets. Representatives from frontline communities around the world will speak out about their opposition to these false solutions.

In a press conference at 9.00 am in the Mocha Room the same day, 5 Dec 2019, the organizations will launch a briefing to demystify Carbon Markets, and a petition signed by over 150 civil society organisations and social movements so far, and still rising. Printed copies of the carbon markets briefing will be available in English and Spanish.

Carbon Markets Petition

• Carbon Markets briefing (English): https://ift.tt/3a13gqp • Carbon Markets briefing (Spanish): https://ift.tt/37VZYSK • Carbon Markets briefing (French): https://ift.tt/3n4E1au

Nov 5, 2019

USA Withdraws from Paris Climate Agreement

Donald Trump files to leave Paris Climate Agreement

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration today filed paperwork to begin the formal process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.

In response to today’s actions, Karen Orenstein, Friends of the Earth’s Deputy Director of Economic Policy, issued the following statement:

Donald Trump is more concerned about protecting his golf courses than he is about climate change-fueled flooding that could threaten 300 million people living in coastal areas by 2050. World leaders must not wait for Trump, and must not use his moral bankruptcy as an excuse for inaction. The rest of the world must implement the Paris Agreement without the United States.

However, rich countries must take the threat caused by climate change far more seriously and make their mitigation and climate finance commitments commensurate with what climate science and justice demand. When the U.S. has more sane leadership and rejoins the international community, the Paris Agreement needs to be substantially more equitable and ambitious.

While Trump’s White House works to destroy the environment, Congress must move the international climate agenda forward by supporting the Green Climate Fund Authorization Act of 2019, introduced by Representative Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.). This bill would facilitate the provision of funds needed for developing countries to deal with a climate crisis that is not of their making.

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Friends of the Earth fights to protect our environment and create a healthy and just world. We speak truth to power and expose those who endanger people and the planet. Our campaigns work to hold politicians and corporations accountable, transform our economic systems, protect our forests and oceans, and revolutionize our food & agriculture systems.

Friends of the Earth contact Friends of the Earth, 1101 15th Street NW, 11th Floor, Washington, DC 20005, United States.

7 Oct 2019

Sustainable Building News 2019

Population Matters statement on State of Nature 2019

Population Matters director Robin Maynard says:

“The State of Nature report leaves us in no doubt that nature and the conservation community are fighting a losing battle against the UK’s ongoing assault on our wildlife. Good things are being done, but not enough. One reason this battle is being lost is only fleetingly referenced in the report – the most rapidly expanding population of any large nation in Europe (1).

Those references are telling: water abstraction, urbanisation and infrastructure development. These developments are the inevitable consequences of population growth. We all need land, we all need water, we all need infrastructure.

The report states that urbanisation accounted for a greater impact on species than any other habitat conversion and made clear one of the critical trade-offs: we can use less land if we choose to live in a Hong Kong style concrete forest of high rises and then see urban green spaces which offer vital refuges of biodiversity eradicated – or we can sprawl outwards, grubbing up land and habitat from our countryside. Either way, nature suffers.

While population growth is not the only factor driving increased housing demand, ending our population growth is essential if we are to ease that pressure. Meanwhile, our expanding population is clearly one driver of the agricultural intensification that the report identifies as another critical factor.

The 2016 State of Nature report described the UK as one of the most “nature depleted countries in the world”. Overall, things are now worse. The causes are multiple and complex and they demand solutions which are far-reaching and substantial across a multitude of areas.

If, however, we ignore the fact that the ONS projects our population will grow by more than 6 million people over the next 25 years, it’s hard to see how we can possibly expect the battle to protect our biodiversity to be won. If we’re to do so, the UK needs a progressive, evidence-based and strategic Sustainable Population Policy as a matter of urgency.”

State of Nature 2019 report https://nbn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/State-of-Nature-2019-UK-full-report.pdf

UK population growth. The UK population grew from to 52.1m to 66.6m between 1950 and 2018, and is projected to grow to 72.9 million by 2041. Source: Office for National Statistics https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/august2019.

The UK is currently expected to become the most populous nation in Europe in the second half of the century. Source: European Environment Bureau https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/total-population-outlook-from-unstat-3/assessment-1

Population Matters is campaigning for population issues to be addressed in the forthcoming review of the targets and action plan for the Convention on Biodiversity https://populationmatters.org/campaigns/population-and-convention-biodiversity

3 Jul 2018

Sustainable Building News 2018

UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development Report

Built environment organisations call for urgent action on issues such as consumption, innovation and infrastructure to prevent UK slipping behind other nations on poverty, equality and the environment.

A new report released today (3 July 2018) has highlighted the UK’s inadequate performance against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those for the built environment.

The report, Measuring up, from the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD), is the first comprehensive assessment of the UK’s performance against all 17 SDGs and highlights a significant danger that quality of life in the UK will worsen if action is not taken:

Sustainable Development Report News

5 Feb 2018

Population and Climate Change

Population and climate change conference

Population Matters will hold its annual conference in London on 3 March 2018.

Entitled Climate change and us: more feet, more heat? Its theme will be population growth and its impact on climate change. A panel of experts and campaigners will discuss the evidence, the problem and the solutions from a range of perspectives.

For too long, population has been ignored from discussions and plans to tackle climate change, to devastating effect. However, last year, analysis undertaken for a plan to reverse global warming – Drawdown – identified family planning and the education of girls as among the top 10 workable solutions available today. We are pleased to contribute to an initiative like Drawdown with a conference focusing specifically on the link between population growth and climate change. It is urgent.

image courtesy of Population Matters

Population needs to be at the core of discussions on how we are going to combat climate change, and part of the solutions.

In 2017, more than a third of 50 Nobel prize-winning scientists surveyed by the Times Higher Education at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings said that human overpopulation and environmental degradation are the two greatest threats facing humankind.

Waste and over-consumption, especially by wealthy nations, is also putting a huge strain on the environment.

Those in the architectural/construction/property sectors must keep re-evaluating what tangible steps we can make to use less energy and materials.

The event takes place on Saturday 3 March 2018, 2pm, at Conway Hall in central London.

Population and climate change conference

24 Apr 2017

Construction Carbon Reduction

Reduced carbon in infrastructure projects can also reduce costs

When you reduce carbon you can also reduce costs, but you need to consider it at an early stage. Mike Putnam, President & CEO of Skanska UK, is clear about what has to be done to reduce carbon in infrastructure projects.

“You can’t just tackle carbon when you’re part way through a project – because the die is already cast. What you need to do is start up-front when you’re almost got a blank sheet of paper, and say ‘What can we do to take carbon out?’”, he says in the latest episode of Construction Climate Talks.

Mike Putnam, President & CEO of Skanska UK:

Mike Putnam is also Chair of the Green Construction Board which developed the Infrastructure Carbon Review, which sets out a series of actions to achieve carbon reductions of 24 million metric tons per annum from the construction and operation of the UK’s infrastructure assets by 2050, yielding a potential net benefit of up to £1.46 billion per year.

“What we have been able to demonstrate is that by going at the low carbon, trying to take carbon out of construction – whether it’s in the capital phase or the operational phase – it has the added benefit of reducing cost as well.”

Mike Putnam says that it is also important to build a culture where everybody involved in the business and across the industry really understand what the green agenda is all about. “It’s only collaborating across the industry that will bring the whole industry up to a much higher level,” Mike Putnam says.

See Mike Putnam talking about taking carbon out, rewarding success and collaboration, in the 10th episode of Construction Climate Talks. The episode is also released on CCC YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The Construction Climate Talks series, produced by the Construction Climate Challenge initiative hosted by Volvo Construction Equipment, highlights some of the most important issues in climate sustainability today. See all previous episodes here: https://ift.tt/2s1LFKe

For further information please visit Construction Climate Challenge or contact [email protected]

The Construction Climate Challenge (CCC) is an initiative hosted by Volvo Construction Equipment to promote sustainability throughout the entire construction industry value chain and provide funding for environmental research. The Construction Climate Challenge is a part of the Volvo CE commitment to WWF’s Climate Savers Programme.

11 Jan 2017

Construction Climate Challenge

Construction Climate Challenge – Emission Reduction

Open source tool will help drive emission reduction

A new research project seeks to develop a tool to identify and reduce carbon in the construction supply chain. The project is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh Business School and Costain Group and is funded by the Construction Climate Challenge (CCC) initiative hosted by Volvo Construction Equipment.

The Carbon Infrastructure Transformation Tool project (CITT) started from the need to solve two key problems facing the construction industry – the pressing need to reduce GHG emissions, and the highly fragmented nature of supply chains.

“In large infrastructure projects there are large amounts of emissions at stake. The supply chain is also very fragmented, with many different stakeholders. It’s important to ensure we have a consensus across the whole chain to reduce emissions,” says Dr Matthew Brander, Lecturer at University of Edinburgh Business School and Project Manager for CITT.

The research project seeks to develop and implement a tool that will help construction companies identify and reduce carbon. It will pinpoint opportunities to reduce carbon through innovation and supply chain engagement. It will also enhance the amount of communication and dialogue across the supply chain.

“The tool will be integrated into current pricing processes and will allow us to have carbon and cost together. It will put the data in the hands of the right people at the right time in contractors’ processes which will allow them to make decisions to significantly reduce carbon. It will also push carbon further back towards the start of the design processes,” says Damien Canning, Head of Technical Sustainability at Costain Group and Industry Specialist for Carbon Management for CITT.

The project is running for three years and the research will focus on carbon accounting methodologies, stakeholder engagement and social barriers to tool adoption, collaborative frameworks for efficient supply chain management, and decision analytics for project design under uncertainty. As the research is undertaken it will feed back into the development of the tool.

There will be close collaboration between the researchers and the construction industry and live tests have been set up with real infrastructure projects. These will take place throughout the project.

“The way to really drive this is to develop something with as much input from the industry as possible. This will help to raise standards significantly, and ensure consistency across the industry,” says Damien Canning.

After the project is finished the open source tool will be publicly available and free to use, to enhance the possibility for it to be used by as many as possible.

“The key is to get the industry to use this tool. Therefore it has to be accessible and easy to understand. You can develop the best tool in the world but if the stakeholders don’t want to use it, it’s not going to have much impact,” says Dr Matthew Brander.

CCC and research The Construction Climate Challenge (CCC) is an initiative hosted by Volvo Construction Equipment to promote sustainability throughout the entire construction industry and provide funding for environmental research. Through supporting and initiating research projects in relevant areas of construction, CCC acts as a bridge between the industry and sustainability research. During spring 2016 CCC launched a new call for major research projects.

Two proposals were selected to receive funding. The Construction Climate Challenge is part of the Volvo CE commitment to WWF’s Climate Savers Program. Volvo Construction Equipment is a Corporate Advisory Board member of the World Green Building Council.

For further information please visit https://ift.tt/2f0YZa1 or contact [email protected]

9 Jan 2017 Population Growth Drives Housing Crisis

The UK’s dramatic population growth projection by the Office for National Statistics – 11 million more people by 2035, equivalent to 22 more Manchesters, mostly in England, already Europe’s most overcrowded country, will have damaging consequences for everyone (except the construction industry), a new Population Matters report on housing reveals:

Sustainable Architecture – Population Growth Drives Housing Crisis

5 Jan 2017

Climate Change Global Warming Research

Climate change: Fresh doubt over global warming ‘pause’

A controversial study that found there has been no slowdown in global warming has been supported by new research.

Many researchers had accepted that the rate of global warming had slowed in the first 15 years of this century, reports the BBC today.

But new analysis in the journal Science Advances replicates findings that scientists have underestimated ocean temperatures over the past two decades.

With the revised data the apparent pause in temperature rises between 1998 and 2014 disappears.

The idea of a pause had gained support in recent years with even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reporting in 2013 that the global surface temperature “has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years”.

But that consensus was brought into question by a number of studies, of which a report by the the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) published in Science last year was the most significant.

Researchers from Noaa suggested that the temperatures of the oceans were being consistently underestimated by the main global climate models. The authors showed that the ocean buoys used to measure sea temperatures tend to report slightly cooler temperatures than the older ship-based systems.

Climate Change Global Warming Research Report – BBC news link

Population Growth

Population growth increases damages to the environment and depletes natural resources. Therefore, human numbers should be reduced voluntarily to a sustainable level that enables an acceptable quality of life for all.

Population growth increases the number of wealthy carbon emitters and poorer climate change victims and hampers mitigation and adaptation efforts. In 2016, humanity used the sustainable resource output of 1.6 Earths.

Given that human activity already exceeds Earth’s capacity to support it, Population Matters argues that population stabilisation should be strived for without delay.

What can professionals in the AEC field do about this? Anyone involved in construction can help combat climate change by reducing energy and material usage but wihtout controlling population growth any impact will be limited. An overnight energy revolution might mean current population growth isn’t disastrous, but despite expanding alternative energ sources it doesn’t look likely at present.

Comments welcome at info(at)e-architect.com

20 Jun 2015

Climate Change

Earth ‘entering new extinction phase’

The new report – led by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley – states that it is still possible to avoid a “dramatic decay of biodiversity” through intensive conservation, but that rapid action is needed.

Depressing news, but as architects we have a chance to make major impacts on preventing climate change. Can we better the insulation requirements asked for by new tougher Building Regulations? Did we check the plywood certificates to ensure the contractor sourced the material from sustainable forests? On refurbishments have we tried to re-use as much as possible rather than simply replace or build anew? Sometimes our little projects seem like drops in the ocean but what else can we do.

When I was at secondary school in the 1980s I read the Gaia book (by James Lovelock, published 1979) from cover to cover twice and realised as a teenager the number one problem was overpopulation (so much comes from it, deforestation to over consumption of materials and increased pollution) and architects can do little about that, or can we?

Home on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica – light touch in nature, using timber, looks sustainable, is it truly? photo courtesy of architects

This is an architecture site so I won’t expand on this too much but improved education and health systems appear to improve country stability and typically a levelled off birth rate. Over the years we have actively promoted groups such as Article 25 and see it as our responsibility to not only remind readers of the positive work by built environment charities (and architects of say a clinic in Sudan) in improving people’s lives through ecologically-aware building but in the resulting iterations of community cohesion, population stabilisation and reducing negative impact on our planet.

More positively it was relieving to hear the Pope recently linking humans to climate change, hopefully this can help activate and energise some global communities to work to save the planet. The encyclical, named “Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home”, aims to inspire everyone – not just Roman Catholics – to protect the Earth, reports the BBC.

The 192-page letter, which is the highest level teaching document a pope can issue, lays much of the blame for global warming on human activities. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the document, saying climate change was a “moral issue requiring respectful dialogue with all parts of society”.

“The Earth has entered a new period of extinction, a study by three US universities has concluded, and humans could be among the first casualties.

The report said vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal.

The findings echo those in a report published by Duke University last year. One of the new study’s authors said: “We are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event”.”

Climate Change Report – BBC news link

2 Dec 2012

Global Warming – Sustainable Architecture

Carbon Emissions Too High to Stop Climate Change

With global climate talks underway in Doha a new report shows emissions continue to grow.

It is increasingly unlikely that global warming will be kept below an increase of 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels, a study suggests, reports the BBC.

Data shows that global CO2 emissions in 2012 hit 35.6bn tonnes, a 2.6% increase from 2011 and 58% above 1990 levels.

The researchers say that emissions are the largest contributor to future climate change and a strong indicator of potential future warming.

“We need a radical plan.”

The researchers’ paper says the average annual increases in global CO2 levels were 1.0% in the 1990s but 3.1% since 2000.

Recently, the World Meteorological Organization reported that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record high in 2011.

Other potent greenhouse gases such as methane also recorded new highs, according to the WMO report.

Carbon Emissions News – external link to BBC report

photograph : Enrique Browne

So what can architects do to assist?

The RIBA Sustainability Hub includes sustainability information such as design strategies and case studies.

Sustainable design aims to reduce the adverse effect of human activities on our world, particularly climate change.

Our buildings and building operations are responsible for 45% of the carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) emissions in the UK. Architects are a large part of the problem of tackling climate change, and consequently the solution – sustainable architecture.

Long Life, Loose Fit, Low Energy

30 Oct 2012

Sustainable Architecture Videos

Films about the Built Environment and the Climate

e-architect featured a series of eight videos from Green.TV about creating sustainable cities,

sadly they deleted the links since we posted this!

Interview with Daniel Libeskind, Architect How do you involve the local community when developing your architecture projects?

Interview with Richard Rosan, President of Urban Land Institute Why is capturing land value not more widely used as a way to finance infrastructure investments?

Interview with Pablo Vaggione, Lead author of the UN-Habitat Guide for city leaders What is the ideal density for a city to be sustainable?

Interview with David Cadman, President ICLEI How are climate issues linked to urban planning and sustainability?

Four Seasons Seychelles: image from architects

Sustainable Architecture – external link

Sustainable Design : article by Trevor Tucker. 15 Sep 2009

Sustainable Architecture : News

Example of sustainable architecture:

Sustainable architects : Bill Dunster Architects / ZED Factory

Sustainable Building Design : article by Trevor Tucker. 18 Aug 2009

Sustainable Architecture : Brief informal discussion re some of the issues

Sustainable Architecture Archive

Sustainable Architecture : Lighthouse ‘Sust’ Programme

Sustainable Architecture Exhibition

Sustainable architects : Bennetts Associates

Sustainable Homes

Sustainable Housing : Slateford Green, Edinburgh – ‘car-free homes’

Sustainable house : Skye, Western Isles, Sctoland by rural design

Sustainable Architecture : Lotte Glob House

Sustainable Architecture : David Douglas Centre

Sustainable Architecture – Links

DTI Low Carbon Buildings Programme: www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk

Population Matters: https://ift.tt/37XNfPo – Population Growth Drives Housing Crisis

Greener Homes & Buildings: www.ghb.org.uk

Guidance on procuring higher recycled content in construction: www.wrap.org.uk

Forest Stewardship Council – FSC: www.fsc.org

BREEAM: www.breeam.org

Healthy Building Network: www.healthybuilding.net

Sustainable Build: www.sustainablebuild.co.uk

Comments / photos for the Sustainable Architecture page welcome

The post Sustainable Architecture: Climate Change appeared first on e-architect.

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realhiddenlives-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Maya

Maya was unusually tall for a British Pakistani girl. She was 5 foot 9 inches, but slender, weighing only 54 kg. She worked out a lot and kept her a thing frame with model measurements of 34-24-34. She was certainly pretty enough to be a model. Her pale olive complexion added to her allure.

She had been raised in a conservative Asian household. Her parents maintained strong Islamic values, but tolerated integration on a piecemeal basis. In fact, their encouragement of her to do her university education and then her PhD was considered part of their religious faith. As a fist class student, her parents were confident in Maya’s dedication to Islam in both education and practice. Despite their superficial integration into Western society, Maya had been taught clearly that life was made up of the righteous (Muslims) and the kuffar, or disbelievers who were to be tolerated at best at an arm’s length. In particular, as with most Muslim girls, Maya had been taught the strict rules around sex and marriage, in particular the way in which white non-Muslim men were ‘dirty’ due to their bad hygiene and were generally over-sexed and ‘beastly’ as her after school male Islamic teacher had taught her and a group of a teenage girls undergoing puberty from a curtain. He had made clear while there was a guarded toleration, deep inside their hearts they had to maintain a ‘hatred’ lest they be tempted to stray.

What had been surprising among their community though was letting Maya move away from their London home to the south coast where she was doing her PhD studies. They felt they had raised her right, and to a great degree they had were right. She had never even touched let alone kissed a boy, not a Muslim one or a white kaafir one. To let her go on her PhD, they had extracted a promise from Maya that one year into her studies she would agree to marry someone of their choice. Being a good girl, with little to complain about in her middle class lifestyle, which had included a fully paid credit card, a Mercedes, and multiple holidays with her girlfriends to Europe, she had agreed.

She was 25 now and her parents had informed her of the marriage proposal. He was the perfect match, a couple of years older and working in finance or something. She hadn’t paid attention, knowing her parents had made the right choice. She’d expected her parents had chosen someone who could give her the same comfortable lifestyle her parents had. Arranged marriages had their material advantages which she never understood why her white counterparts at her age never understood, with their multiple boyfriends and multiple heart-breaks.

So it would shocked her parents, especially her fiance, to know Maya was currently stripped naked in a strange, white Englishman’s living room. She was lying on the floor, on her side. The strange man and her were in a kamasutra bind, but what was happening was far from sensual as would be expected from people experimenting with kamasutra positions. His right arm was wrapped around her throat, and his left had a firm grip of the fringe of her hair, so hard it felt like her hair was about to rip out. Tears rolled down Maya’s eyes, her tongue hanging out as she drooled. Her cheeks were puffy from what looked like a series of firm slaps across her face, her nose had a thin trickle of blood, now coagulated at her top lip.

The white man’s cock was inside her vagina, rigorously thrusting in and out, her leg raised and up in the air as he had instructed her to do 15 minutes ago at the force of pain which had involved punches to her midriff. The vagina had been unfilled until two hours earlier.

The white man continued to pound mercilessly, as Maya let out gasps of air, the arm choke on her neck enough to let breathe but not enough to let her breath keep pace with the man’s violent thrusts. She could feel the cold sweat on his fat belly rubbing up against her slim warm back, having a strange cooling sensation which added to the wild electrical impulses that were running around her brain, making her even more moist between her legs. Her dark nipples stood erect out of her paler olive B cup breasts, signalling her body was aching what was happening to her.

The white man had put a mirror in front of them so Maya was forced to see his cock pounding her hole. The visual contrast between his pale skin, with its translucent quality and patchy pock-marks and red patches, against her almost perfect and homogeneous pale olive skin increased the electrical impulses between her eyes, brain and vagina, which continued to secrete fluids to moisten the passage of the penis and clearly indicate the body’s desire for what Maya was enduring.

But it was his insults that really made her two brains as the white man had called it, the one in her head and her real brain between her legs, become like goo, weakening her knees when he had first said it to her back in the office. The severe taboo nature of desiring what Maya had been taught to hate the most.

“You fu-ck-in Paki bi-tch,” the man would burst out as he thrusted. “You fu-uc-king ungrateful Paki wh-ore,” he followed up with this time. “Paki bitch”, “Paki dog”, “Paki whore”, “Paki cunt”. “Curry coon”, “curry whore”, “curry cunt”. “Muslim dog”, “Muslim bitch”, “Muslim cunt”. The names changed but had the same effect.

Maya gasped for air as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. Her mind was emptied of all her aloof arrogance now, filled only with the pain and pleasure the white man’s overly thick cock was bringing between her legs, his insults and violence like a cherry on thick gooey fucking cake made of the white man’s cum.

The man, who would have appeared strange to her fiance, was not so strange to Maya: it was her colleague from work, Bob.

Bob was a middle-aged white Englishman, with typical nondescript middle-aged, white man features. He was in his late 40s, divorced and with no children, having lived out a loveless marriage for the last 15 years. He currently lived alone. He was only 5 foot 5 and a bit inches but weighed over 180 lbs, giving him a big portly belly which was typical of most white men of his age. He was also heavily balding, and it would be fair to say he was conventionally “ugly”; something he knew too well, having been repeatedly turned down for dates on dozens of dating apps.

Bob’s job was mundane and menial, but had a nice salary and a pleasant enough office work environment which allowed him to put his meticulous nature to use. Like most white men of his generation, Bob has distinctly non-politically correct views, even so far as going to say he had very “un” politically-correct views. But also like most men of his generation, he had learned to keep these views to himself. Instead, like most 40-something men, railing against the liberal orthodoxy of his day and age was limited to anonymous screeds against Islam, blacks, gays, immigrants and do-gooder left-wingers. Bob was not always wrong about his views, but he felt expressing these views was unpalatable these days and not without good evidence.

Bob had a distinct dislike verging on hatred of Islam. He had correctly diagnosed many of its ills based on his extensive reading. While he over-egged his anonymous screeds with views of his country and the West on the verge of a takeover, he rightly recognized the demeaning of white men in society in particular, and the strange defense of a religion that demeaned anyone who wasn’t a male, Muslim, and usually Arab.

Bob had maintained these views until he had met Maya on her first day at her temporary job which she wanted to add to her resume before resuming and closing in on her PhD. Something had stirred inside him. Having never felt it before, or having forgotten how he had felt all those years ago, he wasn’t sure if it was love. She had walked in to the office in a sort of fusion Western and what he recognized as Asian clothes, although he noticed she did not wear the hijab. She had been introduced to him as “Maya” and he instantly figured she was Muslim, by her attire, name and then refusal to extend her hand to shake his. However, as she had walked away from his desk at that first meeting, she had returned to say “Sorry, I forgot to say hello to you,” shaking Bob’s hand.

Bob was smitten since that day, and his temper against Muslims expressed as username AWhiteManResistsPC lessened, at least turning into more traditional liberal patriarchy that the West should help Islamic women. Women like Maya.

For the next 6 months Bob tried to befriend Maya. He would meet her in the pantry for coffee, and try and make conversation. But while she was polite, she would remain aloof and distant. It would anger him to see her laughing with other more conventionally good-looking men. She would even break her Islamic protocol she maintained usually, and touch their arms, something she would never to do him. He wondered if she had mistakenly shook his hand all those weeks ago.

He’d even brought her an expensive present when the office had a birthday party for her within one month of her starting at the company. Sadly for Bob, she had failed to acknowledge his present and ended up assuming the whole office had clubbed together and brought him the present.

These repeated failures to make even the most basic connection had angered Bob, and AWhiteManResistsPC’s screeds return, becoming more vexed and even violent against Muslims, with his concern now about Muslim women being stealth Islamists and breeding too many potential extremists.

These vexations usually lessened after an evening or weekend of pornography, especially any of the fake Arab or Muslim-themed paid porn sites. He would also go on chat websites to talk ‘dirty’, and end up masturbating, usually to thoughts of Maya and her slim, slender, tall body.

It was on one of these porn/chat binge weekends Bob’s life would change for the better. One Sunday night, he had been interacting with an Asian Muslim woman on a chat site, a little older than Maya, but of a similar profile. She was also academically-minded but from an even more conservative background. More importantly for Bob, the chat had delved straight into sexuality and desire, and in particular what Asian Muslim women like the chatter felt about white men like Bob.

The discussion revealed to Bob what he had always felt, but had never been able to express: Muslim women, Asian ones in particular, had a deep-seated attraction of white Anglo-Saxon men, and even more so for white men who were over-confident, arrogant and comfortable with upholding “traditional” patriarchal roles of men and women. The discussion with the chatter moved around topics he enjoyed, such as history, science, genetics and psychology, all of which combined to explain the deep-seated submissive attitude of Islamic women with white men, and the simultaneous resistant they offered to them, which according to the woman chatter was superficial. She had summed it as akin to the politicians and pastors in the US who would vote and rail against homosexuality, but revealed to be gay. The ‘resistance’, whether active as in the case of the mouthy Muslim women who promoted ideas like #killallwhitemen on social media, or as the arrogant aloofness displayed by Maya, was a mere signal to their deep-seated and underlying desire for outright domination by white patriarchy: a ‘bat signal’ for a confident, arrogant white man to take charge of their bodies.

The discussion had astounded Bob, but at the same time allowed him to indulge in those subconscious thoughts he had put out of his mind. His rational brain had told him Muslim women would never desire white men, and definitely not in the way the female chatter had explained. But his so-called lizard brain, the one which controlled desire had felt it all along.

The Asian woman chatter had asked Bob if he knew any Asian or Muslim women, and he had opened up about Maya and her behaviour. She had told him while none of what she had said could ever be 100% certain, he could do some little tests to check Maya’s desire and suitability for sexual enslavement by Bob. She told Bob that in the mornings he should greet her in front of the office by extending his hand. If she extended her hand back with an open face, head titled back somewhat, there was a clear signal for desire. Another test was for him to walk to her desk and snappily call her name. If she immediately looked up, and then stood up as he approached, that was her subconscious craving domination. The last test, which doubled as a recommendation on ensnaring Maya, was to isolate her during a coffee break and start the conversation about her sex-life. Something innocuous like whether she was married or not, which would then slowly be upped to questions about her sexual experience. If, as the chatter had guessed correctly, Maya was a virgin, she would mumble, embarrassed at a topic considered taboo for Muslim women to discuss especially with non-Muslim men, and that too white men. The chatter advised that at this point Bob was to mention the pain involved in sex and be open about racial differences between the penis length and thickness of Caucasian men and men of Maya’s background. The chatter had told Bob any sign of submissiveness, such as reddening of the cheeks or lowering of the eyes and head, was a clear signal of her complete willingness to be dominated and taken. At the point, Bob should feel comfortable to talk more openly about what he wanted from Maya, even use less politically correct language if needed, and touch her on her arm, knee, small of her back, maybe even her behind in a suggestive if formal manner.

Bob masturbated six times that Sunday evening to the thoughts that had been racing in his mind since he had spoken to the Asian Muslim woman chatter. He went for a 7th time half-way through the early morning at 4am, he was so excited and agitated. In preparation of his prospective discussion with Maya, he had measured the length and girth of his penis and had been surprised to discover that while his length was nothing too special, a healthy 7 and a half inches, his girth was unusually oversized even for a Caucasian, measuring at 6 inches.

Butterflies fluttered in Bob’s stomach as he saw Maya approaching the next day at work. Maya and Bob had always started working early, around 730am. Maya was wearing a green-themed shalwar kameez, the dress of choice favored by Pakistanis. She walked up to the office, and before Bob emerged from behind the door, startling her somewhat. He extended his hand and Bob’s heart raced... she passed the first test, her head tilting back significantly to show her neck. Inside, the butterflies fluttered a lot more. He made small talk as he walked her up the stairs, tempted to touch her behind as he led her through the door. But he held off for now and let her walk to her desk.

Bob couldn’t work with his usual meticulous clarity. Too many thoughts were in his head. Was the first test really passed or was he just imagining it? Was she really showing her neck to him? Would the next tests work or not? He watched the clock from 730am to 9am when he had decided to walk to her desk and demand something work-related from Maya in a snappy voice.

He marched over with serious intent to her desk calling her name with a firm crisp voice, which sounded much like a headmaster at school. As predicted by the anonymous woman chatter over the weekend, Maya looked up and immediately stood up, almost standing to attention. She tried smiling, but Bob gave her a firm order, refused to smile, and once he noticed her eyes lowered at his firm order, he marched off.

Bob marched straight into the toilet as his heart was pounding. He couldn’t believe what was happening, his thick penis now a semi-firm chubby which causing an embarrassing bulge and making him difficult to walk. He calmed himself down, washed his face and walked out.

While sitting at his desk and waiting for 1030 coffee break, he decided to see if the snappy stern voice would work again.

He did it three times, each time she stood up immediately and upon staring at his stern gaze she lowered her eyes and nodded submissively to perform whatever menial task he had asked of her. One time it merely involved photocopying some pointless papers, which when she brought them over, Bob had looked and then thrown into the bin anyway, muttering “useless”. Maya had stood there ashamed at failing at her job, head down and nodded a pliant sorry look and walked back to her desk.

Each time Bob did this, his cock became more chubby, but he became more in control, realizing the new over-confident arrogant Bob was slowly molding Maya.

1030 came quickly. Quicker than Bob had imagined. He knew Maya would always have her coffee at 1045, letting the 1030 rush die down. Bob was there at 1030 and made a minor commotion to ward off people, directing some of his irate colleagues to the other pantry. By 1045 the pantry was empty.

Maya was walking over unaware of what was happening.

Bob took a deep breathe and pretended to be busy making coffee.

“Hi Maya, would you like some coffee?” Bob asked. Luckily for Bob, he knew just what she wanted. “Errrm, it’s ok, I’ll make my own...,” Maya said, before Bob said “Strong, black, half a spoon of brown sugar...,” smiling and interrupting Maya. She seemed pleasantly surprised and nodded a yes, smiling back to Bob.

She sat down on the couch, exhausted with her morning. Bob looked at her sitting there and grinned... he snapped “Maya” and she immediately stood up, respecting his authority. He asked if she had completed a menial task he had not asked her to do but gave the impression he had. She went red faced at the embarrassment as he chided her. “Worthless,” Bob muttered and she remained quiet head down. “Well, sit down then, finish your coffee,” Bob snapped. He sat down on the couch perpendicular to her, in the seat closest to the side she was on. He was in arm’s length of her.

“So, Maya, you have been here 6 months, tell me more about you...,” Bob trailed off. “Well, I am doing this job for a year, and continuing my studies in my spare time...” She carried out with the minutia of her life. Before she got to the end of whatever mundane activity she was describing, Bob yawned and then interrupted, “Are you married, Maya?”

She sighed. “No, but my parents have chosen someone. He’s works in the City in London for a major investment bank...” Once again, Bob interrupted her rudely, “I see... so you have never had sex?” he asked her, grinning at her. Maya went red faced, clearly embarrassed at the question. She was quiet for 30 seconds, before Bob asked again in his snappy voice “Well, Maya, have you ever had sex?” She nodded a no slowly. Her pale olive cheeks now bright red.

“You know sex will be very painful? Women’s vaginas are tiny, and have to be forced open by the man. Sex is an inherently violent act, if you think about it. The man has to violate you repeatedly so he can enjoy himself.” Bob was being crude but the crudeness made Maya hang her head out of shame. “What’s more, Caucasian or white men tend to have larger and especially thicker penises. They tend to be extremely painful for Asian virgins, who naturally have shallow and small vaginas. Since you’re a virgin and Asian, this includes you, Maya.”

She sat quiet, ashamed, embarrassed, red faced. But she sat there.

Bob leaned forward, touching her knees. “Maya, do you know how small your hole is?” She would have blushed red if her face was not already bright red. She nodded a slow no. “Maya, I want you to imagine something 6 inches in girth going inside your small vagina. I think it would extremely painful for an Asian woman like you, especially a virgin Muslim one. Do you think it would be extremely painful?” She shrugged, and when promoted by him again in that stern voice said “Y-y-y-yes, B-b-b-ob.” He then got angry and squeezed her thigh. “Have some respect, you ungrateful bitch,” Bob said sternly but quietly, his face close to hers as she looked down. Maya’s eyes widened and she whispered, “Y-y-y-es, s-s-s-sir.” He grinned.

“Now put the coffee mug back in the sink, Maya,” Bob instructed. Maya stood up and Bob walked with her. He put his left hand on her behind and lifted the kameez Maya was wearing, so his hand was on her buttocks but over her clothes. He then put his hand up to her waist and touched her soft, warm skin. Maya bit her lower lip at the touch of his cold sweaty hand. No man had touched her there before, and now a white non-Muslim disbeliever male, with an uncircumcised penis, unclean asshole, and dirty smell was touching her there. Bob being shorter than Maya by nearly 4 inches looked up at her face, with a wicked, evil grin. Maya was red faced, head down, biting her lower lip, looking confused and scared at the same time. As they got to the kitchen, he ordered to clean her cup. She did so and as as she did, he slipped his hand inside the waist band of her shalwar onto the top of her ass. He squeezed one of her buttocks. “I see you work out regularly, Maya. This is good, you will be able to last for a long time.” He kept grinning, his cock swelling into a well defined chubby as he toyed with Maya.

Maya finished washing up while being fondled by Bob. Keeping his hands inside her shalwar and on squeezed on her right ass cheek, he then pulled her head down using he fringe of her hair so he could whisper in her ear.

“Listen to me you fucking Paki bitch. The hole between your legs needs to be stretched out and made to bleed. You’re going to go to your desk, and tell them you’re not feeling well. Then you will drive me in your car to my apartment. Later we will visit your apartment. We need to show make sure your Islamic hole is properly christened, you Muslim bitch.”

Bob let go of her hair, and started to lead her out of the pantry. For a split second Maya hesitated, and pleaded. “Please,” she begged Bob. Holding her by her left arm, Bob slammed Maya against the wall and gripped her neck with his left hand. With his right hand he slowly started to lift her kameez and then make his way inside her elastic banded shalwar. Maya grabbed his right hand and begged again. “Please, sir, please... I am Muslim... I cannot...” she had tears welling in her eyes.

Bob grinned and slapped her across her face. “I know you’re Muslim, you Paki pig,” he grunted. “That’s why when I reach inside here and find your hole is wet, you will do as I say. But if it’s dry, I will let you go. Fair?” He grinned and her eyes rolled back as she knew the inevitable.

His fingers reached inside a very moist vagina. The vagina itself was bald, as the practice among Muslim women to remove all their pubic hair. He pushed two fingers inside and she gasped for air, almost letting out a moan that sounded like begging. Bob forced his left hand over her mouth. “Shhhh, you will have plenty of time to moan like the Paki whore you are.” He grinned. “And I win the bet,”

He pulled out of her hole and stepped away from Maya. For a tiny fraction of a second Maya and Bob’s eyes met. They both knew she could run into the main office and scream rape. But she lowered her eyes, knowing Bob was right. She walked to her desk and told her line manager she was very ill. Her manager told her not to worry and take as much time as she needed.

The drive in the car had mostly been a monologue from Bob. AWhiteManResistsPC no longer had to hide behind an online name. He spent the journey explaining the backwards and barbaric nature of Islam, the inherent genetic predisposition of Asian cultures to barbarism, and the fact that white men were the most highly valued on dating apps and by non-white cultures where misogyny had been beaten back. He explained white misogyny was acceptable as it usually involved correcting wrongs such as burning widows, stoning women, cutting women’s clitorises, and so on. That a side effect was to free the non-white women to the extent they would happily strip naked for white men and satisfy their bases needs was to the white man’s benefit, a natural talent thanks to evolution.

Bob lived in a nice apartment, which was clean and minimal, but had signs of his above average salary. Maya noticed the expensive electronic goods, before Bob’s stern voice snapped her back to reality.

“Get your fucking clothes off, you Paki bitch. Naked, now!” Bob barked. Bob also started removing his clothes as Maya pulled her kameez and shalwar off to reveal her slim frame. She was wearing plain silk black panties and a bra.

“I said naked, you fucking stupid Paki pig!” Sheepishly, Maya started to unbuckle her bra and then let down her panties. For a brief split second, Bob, who was now always naked, his belly fat hanging over his waist, admired Maya’s 34-24-34 frame, her small but perky B cup breasts, with the nipples already firm and pointy indicating her body was aroused.

Maya stood head down, so ashamed but unable to say no to Bob. For some reason, it felt natural to be talked down and shouted at by a man like Bob. She stared between his legs at something which look like a thick slab of met, a pinky white rod which was semi-chubby.

Bob walked up to a subdued and nervous Maya, and launched a crude haymaker into her midriff. Maya was winded, and doubled over Bob’s right fist. He lifted her head by her hair and then forced her to stand up straight. “That’s right, you Paki nigger. You think you could get away with being an arrogant Islamic pig?” He then launched the same crude haymaker with his other fist causing her to double over again, even more severely winded than before.

Bob landed a dozen haymakers in Maya’s slender midriff and torso area. The violence drove the dopamine levels in both Bob and Maya through the normal roof. The punching caused Bob’s cock to grow itself, while Maya’s bald vagina lips glistened. Bob rubbed two fingers and a thumb over Maya’s vagina and then forced her to smell her own vaginal fluids by sticking the two fingers up her nose. “You smell this, you Paki pig? This is what you live for.”

Bob then summarily slapped Maya across her face. His right open hand landing right across Maya’s face. “You fucking Muslim cunt.” He let out a backhand with the same hand across Maya’s other cheek. He then pulled Maya down by her hair forcing her head down by 5 inches and started to slap her across her right cheek, repeatedly. “You ungrateful, ugly, stupid Paki pig.” The names rained down as fast as the blows. First the right cheek. Then the left cheek.

By the time Bob was finished, Maya’s hole was moist. Her knees were like jelly. Her mind blank, except for the painful pleasure she receiving, her entire body was quivering.

He pulled up Maya after her slapping and instructed her in his stern snappy voice, “You will got to your university and join a rock climbing and extreme sports society. This will allow you to explain injuries like this...” he emphasised the last word in the sentence only to slap Maya hard again across her cheek causing her nose to bleed a little, the blood trickling down.

It was two hours later that Maya was now in her kamasutra bind, with Bob thrusting his thick cock in and out of her hole, Maya’s mind lost in an endless and repeating orgasm, her brain responding like a coke addict: dazed, confused and unable to process anything other than the an even bigger hit.

#raceplay brown pakis desis muslimaslut

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vincetrombino-blog · 7 years ago

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Cool Thus Far

When confronted with the question of determining one’s world view, I believe that it is important to first take a look at their past, and the environment they grew up in, in order to determine what that worldview has become. Personally, my world view has been strongly influenced by my upbringing and my city. I have developed the view that survival and resiliency are necessities that the world instills in many, which forces them to either excel at life or fade away into the background. I believe that a concept of morality and a desire to follow the rules must be accompanied with one’s survival sense so that they do not become totally ruthless. In addition, I also think that anyone has the potential to become something greater than what society intends that they will amount to, depending on the amount of work that is combined with their resiliency. All of these views were born in my hometown.

Judging from where I live, it can be assumed that I had a pretty rough time fitting in at my privileged private high school. I come from the low-income area of Pompano Beach, Florida, dubbed the nickname “Pompton” for reasons that are self-evident based on the way it conducts itself. Violence and robberies are a common occurrence and they happen just down the street. People act this way only because they feel as if they have no other choice if they want to survive. Survival and resiliency have been qualities that have been instilled in my world view from a very young age. However, I was also taught by my parents that these qualities must be accompanied with integrity and a servant spirit to keep myself in check. My father and mother worked countless hours to put my sister and I through private school so that, one day, we could both have the chance at a better future. Oscar Wilde writes, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”(quotationspage.com). My parents urged me and my sister to “look towards the stars” in a way, so that we could become something better than what society intended us to become. It would be our rebellion from the status quo.

This “chance” was something that was very hard to put into action in my own experience. At first, due to my family’s economic status, I did not fit in with the kids at my high school. I tried to assimilate to their status by becoming popular. My popularity became a mask that I would hide behind in order to “fit in” with the crowd. The strategy worked greater than I thought it would. I was elected president of my class, was made captain of the varsity soccer team, and instantly became the person that people came to when they had a problem that needed solving. Despite the differences between my peers and I, my high school experience became something unreal to me. It had far exceeded my expectations and I thought that it was only going to get better from then on out until one day.

That day, when on my way home from school, I noticed my father had not been answering his phone the countless times I had called. As I entered the house, I shouted my father’s name but there was no answer. When I checked his office, my father had been dead for a few hours then. My world was shaken and what I thought I knew was distorted. All I could do was hold on to my father for the little time we had left together. However, in this moment, even though I did not realize it at the time, my life changed drastically. My priorities changed and accompanied my world view that I had thus far in a tremendous way. My father’s sacrifices would not be made in vain. I no longer needed the approval of my peers and I started letting my actions define me, rather than my social status. My previous views of survival and resiliency were heightened due to the desire I felt to provide for my family’s needs in my father’s absence.

With this being said, my world view coincides with the cool authors in some ways but differs in others. For instance, Friedrich Nietzsche writes, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” (brainyquote.com). This quote sums up much of my young adult life thus far. Suffering, survival, and resiliency have all been factors that I have adopted into my world view. In my opinion, it is true that suffering is a major part of the world we live in and it shapes all of us in different ways. No one goes looking for pain and suffering, it typically finds you. Due to this fact, my experience has taught me that everyone’s suffering is personalized. This means that it has the power to shape each individual differently. I believe that Nietzsche and I agree on this concept of “becoming what one is” and the individuality and innovation that accompanies it (iep.utm.edu). However, when thinking about the belief that one must become a god, Nietzsche and I differ. To imply that one must become a god, according to Nietzsche, means that they must first “transcend their humanity” (“Human, All Too Human”). Personally, I believe it to be impossible for humans to transcend their humanity because they lack the quality of perfection that god’s must possess. Some reactions to personal suffering and the suffering of others, in my opinion, suggest this to be impossible. For example, Nietzsche himself reacts to the suffering of a fallen horse by expressing sympathy towards it, and furthermore, emphasizes his inability to surpass his humanity in the process (“Human, All Too Human”). Nietzsche’s ideologies complement my world view in respect that I think suffering is a way of finding meaning in life but also differ from my view when it comes to human ability in achieving god status.

I spoke earlier of my attempt to “fit in” at my high school. Part of my world view, for a while, had to do with me conforming to what I thought to be societal norms. It was almost as if I was putting on a disguise for the world so that they would not judge me. According to cool, more specifically Oscar Wilde, my strategy took away my uniqueness. Wilde writes, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation” (quotationspage.com). My father’s passing made me realize my need for uniqueness and that I should not care what others think of me. After this, I was faced with the question of how to apply this view to my life. This is where the Yoruba’s “self-mastery” concept became very interesting to me. According to cool, we have learned that mastery of the body is one of its central doctrines. After first learning this concept, I was not entirely sure of what it meant. The Yoruba seemed to translate their cool and self-mastery into work. This meant doing everything with rhythm and it became a way for them to keep their bodies, and in turn, their cool in check (Thompson 41). This concept of rhythm definitely provides a way for the Yoruba to conduct themselves, but in my experience, the roots of self-mastery are found in practicing control of one’s emotions. For example, a model of a sinking ship was used in class to highlight the need of self-mastery in that situation. I believe that in that situation, self- mastery would need to primarily involve control over one’s emotions. Without this, everyone on the ship would most likely parish due to lack of control and hysteria. This being said, a question came to me after I made this connection. Would cool worry about the lives of others on the sinking ship or just about this conceived notion of “the self?” According to the Yoruba, a tribe that clearly possess the cool, community is absolutely necessary because there is much to learn from ancestry (Thompson 64). However, Nietzsche, who also sets standards for the principles of cool says, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself” (quotationspage.com). Despite the ambiguity that the sinking ship question presents, I feel like its true interpretation depends on the interpreter. For example, cool, according to my understanding of cool thus far, would most likely worry about itself rather than the rest of the people on the ship. This is where the cool personality’s narcissism comes into play. Cool’s narcissism “gives rise to the feeling that the world revolves around you and shares your moods” (Pountain and Robins 26). In an effort to become unique, my world view reminds me not to think that the world revolves around me. To my world view, the Yoruba possess a similar ideology when deciding how to act towards others. Putting others before yourself seems to me like a good way to ensure one’s survival and resiliency by temporarily relieving the pain of life. This belief separates me from the cool.

As far as society’s role in my world view, I believe it to be imperative that people rebel against society’s intentions. However, it is obvious that rebellion can take many forms. Cool’s rebellion is believed to be constant. One who is cool is called to rebel against themselves, society, and even death. Although their rebellion may be futile, they still must rebel. DuBois is a prime candidate for this kind of cool. He believes that the “burden” for blacks to achieve true freedom may be “beyond the measure of their strength” (bartleby.com). This being said, DuBois still believes that blacks will try to achieve true equality as American citizens, despite the odds, because they are doing it “in the name of this land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity” (bartleby.com). My world view also believes that rebellion should still try to occur, even if the odds are stacked against it. Still, my world view has taught me that my rebellion must be an individual rebellion. This is because, unlike DuBois’s rebellion, I am rebelling for myself, not for the fate of a whole people. If anything, I feel as though my worldview pushes me to rebel against my society and pursue my own interests in an effort defy its expectations and make my father proud of my accomplishments. It is a very personal rebellion.

Major events in my life and my environment have shaped me into the man I am today with the current world view I possess. Cool’s authors have opened my eyes to the possibility of why I have many of the views I do. They seem to complement and contradict each other in many ways. I do not believe that I meet most of the requirements for being cool, but I’m alright.

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khalilhumam · 5 years ago

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Supercharging anti-corruption initiatives: The TAP-Plus approach

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/supercharging-anti-corruption-initiatives-the-tap-plus-approach/

Supercharging anti-corruption initiatives: The TAP-Plus approach

By Victoria Bassetti, Norman Eisen Controlling corruption is one of the great global challenges of our time. With as much as $2 trillion lost worldwide to direct corruption every year, it’s no wonder that tackling it is a top priority for governments, international institutions, and civil society. Any effort at fighting corruption globally must include homing in on an acutely vulnerable sector: extractives. With its enormous cash flows and immense profits, the natural resource value chain is a corruption honey pot. “While corruption can occur almost anywhere, it is most prevalent in a few hot spots. One involves natural resources, especially oil and mining. . . . Indeed, resource-rich countries tend to be more corrupt because they struggle with weaker institutions and poor accountability in the use of their natural wealth,” the IMF’s Paolo Mauro, Paulo Medas, and Jean-Marc Fournier noted last year. In the last three decades, the fight against corruption has scored some victories, suffered some setbacks, and, above all, has been a learning experience. How do we take these efforts to the next level? A problem as large and multifaceted as corruption in natural resource governance requires complex, sophisticated analysis. Interventions or measures designed to combat corruption demand a level of situational awareness and analytical insight that match the intricacy of the problem itself. The Leveraging Transparency to Reduce Corruption project (LTRC), a global initiative launched in 2017 by the Brookings Institution with Results for Development and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), proposes a next-generation framework for analyzing natural resource anti-corruption programs. We call this framework “TAP-Plus.” LTRC builds on decades of research and practice in transparency, accountability, and participation (TAP) and adds to it several factors that we believe create a supercharged anti-corruption toolkit. Today, bundled TAP interventions (i.e., those that combine two or three elements of TAP) are the pro-integrity tactic most often deployed by reformers to fight corruption, which we generally define as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. In the most basic understanding of TAP, transparency, accountability, and participation work as a triumvirate as part of a positive feedback loop that constrains corruption and incentivizes government action for the common good. But decades of research on the TAP troika have demonstrated that it is not enough. In our new report, “The TAP-Plus Approach to Anti-Corruption in the Natural Resource Value Chain,” published last week, we lay out the shortcomings of TAP alone—and how to overcome them. We hypothesize that three factors require particular attention in order to achieve scaled-up impact: interventions one, must address the implementation gap within TAP efforts; two, need to consider contextual factors in design of realistic TAP programs; and, three, should consider the inclusion of complementary measures—beyond the traditional TAP field—which interact with TAP interventions and may have a significant impact in preventing or reducing corruption and improving sustainable development outcomes. Altogether, TAP-Plus provides a new, systematic framework for analyzing corruption and designing interventions. As such, we hope TAP-Plus will serve as a useful resource for practitioners, scholars, and others interested in the development and application of more effective approaches to tackling corruption (particularly along the natural resource value chain) and advancing sustainable development. This new TAP-Plus approach helps to unpack many of the truisms we often hear in anti-corruption work. Consider the “implementation gap.” It is not surprising to learn that many programs are launched and many laws are passed that then fail to be fully implemented. However, we propose a more rigorous analysis of the implementation gap. We build upon work by NRGI (including its Resource Governance Index), the Open Government Partnership, and on-the-ground practitioners in freedom of information like the World Resources Institute’s Strengthening the Right to Information for People and the Environment (STRIPE) and Environmental Democracy projects. Each have created metrics for either measuring implementation gaps or systematically determining why they are occurring. To give one example of this analysis, in 2017, NRGI measured the gap between multiple laws on the books versus actual practice in its Resource Governance Index. In one particularly acute instance of the implementation gap, it examined requirements pertaining to national governments that distribute natural resource revenue to subnational governments. All told, 23 of the 33 governments that make those distributions also mandate audits to better ensure transparency and accountability for the transmission of the money. NRGI discovered, however, that, “Audits actually only took place in 12 [of the 23]…” This was one of many implementation gap metrics NRGI used in its index and that LTRC aims to build from. Or consider the oft repeated axiom “context matters.” Many early TAP efforts suffered from top-down approaches and were part of the “Common swirl of politically related ‘good things,’” rather than being well tailored to on-the-ground, complex environments. Now, it seems self-evident that any TAP initiative to combat corruption (or to improve development outcomes) should be both aware of and adapted to the political economy of its target—if it wants to succeed, at least. But “context” is not always clearly defined. Based on our literature review of more than 650 works on TAP and the natural resource value chain, we aim to make the sometimes murky idea of “context” more concrete. As a result of our review, we surfaced a set of five specific contextual factors that are conceptually intertwined with TAP. Critically, they also can be examined using well-developed or emerging studies. They are capture; social trust, political trust, and conflict; civic space and media freedom; rule of law; and government effectiveness and capacity. The chart below provides our working definitions of those five contextual factors.

Contextual Factor LTRC Working Definition Capture “The efforts of firms to shape and influence the underlying rules of the game (i.e., legislation, laws, rules, and decrees) through private payments to public officials” (Hellman et al. 1999, 4). Social Trust, Political Trust, and Conflict

Social Trust: The degree to which individuals in a society share and believe others share mutually beneficial goals, regardless of ethnic, racial, or religious categories (Rothstein and Uslaner 2005; Rothstein 2011, 2013). Political Trust: “[T]rust between citizens and political elites, or citizen confidence in political institutions” (Newton 2005). Conflict: Contexts of ongoing war or history of war, confrontations between communities and companies, or the presence of armed insurgencies.

Civic Space and Media Freedom

The basic democratic rights of citizens and journalists to freely associate, assemble, share information, and express opinions without fear of reprisal or censorship.

Rule of Law

The presence of an institutionalized, understood, trusted, shared, and enforced system of rights and rules that applies to everyone equally; protects all members of a society from harm; provides means of redress, resolution, and relief when harmed; and fairly determines and metes out punishment for those who break laws or violate rights.

Government Effectiveness and Capacity

The financial and/or technical capacity to carry out the functions necessary to properly manage natural resources and support anti-corruption efforts.

TAP-Plus proposes that these five contextual factors must be explicitly considered, measured (where possible), and assessed vis-à-vis specific TAP interventions or governance efforts. Ideally, of course, every TAP intervention or anti-corruption effort would take place in enabling environments where all contextual factors are aligned to support success. But that is not the world we live in. Instead, a clear-eyed understanding of contextual factors allows governance initiatives to adapt where necessary or to alter context where possible. Finally, TAP-Plus places emphasis on several complementary, natural resource-specific, non-governmental institutions or programs that have an outsized impact on corruption pathways. These can include state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth funds, and beneficial ownership disclosure schemes. Depending on the jurisdiction in question, these entities and their reform can be highly complementary to the environment that either enables or constrains an anti-corruption intervention. Our TAP-Plus approach encompasses a complex set of interrelated factors, and we are unlikely to be able to investigate exhaustively each element. But our new report is a first step toward making the analysis of anti-corruption efforts as rich and sophisticated as the problem itself.

Thanks to Robin Lewis for research and editorial assistance, and to Carter Squires for fact-checking and copyediting assistance.

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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For Trans People in the Service Industry, Discrimination Is an Unfortunate Reality of the Job

Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

A Supreme Court ruling makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee based on sexual orientation or gender, but that barely begins to address the unique pressures and harassment faced by trans service workers

On June 15, in a historic case, the Supreme Court held that federal law forbids discriminating against an employee solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Such an action would be considered discrimination under Title VII, as “an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” writes Justice Neil Gorsuch. In other words, a workplace couldn’t legally fire a man for having a husband because it wouldn’t fire a woman for having a husband. If “the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth,” it’s discrimination “because of … sex.”

Much of the praise for the ruling comes from the fact that it’s been a long time coming. Until now, it’s been legal in more than half of U.S. states to fire someone for being gay, bisexual, or trans, even though it’s clearly a discriminatory practice. “The Supreme Court’s decision provides the nation with great news during a time when it is sorely needed. To hear the highest court in the land say LGBTQ people are, and should be, protected from discrimination under federal law is a historic moment,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, in a statement. However, she notes, “we still have more work to do to ensure that transgender people can fully live their lives without fear of discrimination for being who they are.”

The food service industry has often been a place for society’s “outcasts,” including LGBTQ people, to find acceptance and community. But while this ruling is a win for LGBTQ rights in general, trans and nonbinary people in the food service industry are questioning how much of an effect it’ll have on everyday life — and imagining what could be done to effect tangible change.

Niko Prytula, a nonbinary person who lives in Virginia, only recently stopped working in food service after eight years, most recently at a fine dining establishment with extremely formal practices. At most of their jobs, they were never open about their gender identity. “I was always out as queer, and there were not that many places where I was the only queer person on staff,” they say, “but when I was working fine dining, that was the first time where it felt like it would be a genuine obstacle to be out.”

Most of that was not because of the risk of discrimination from management, but rather from customers. Prytula recalls the extraordinarily gendered style of service, which required serving the oldest woman at the table first, referring to coworkers and patrons as “Mister” or “Miss,” and serving mostly older, white customers. “I do think [coming out] would have just made things very complicated,” they say. “I feel like it would have required me to create almost like a flowchart for my coworkers of like, ‘Okay, so I want you guys to use the correct pronouns for me, but you can let the tables misgender me all they want, because I don’t want to get in an argument with some elderly person when it’s literally a matter of my income.’”

Lucky Michaels, a trans rights activist and bartender at Storico at the New York Historical Society, says “as a trans person, job security is huge.” Michaels, a nonbinary trans woman, has been working in hospitality since the late ’90s, and says that because of the need for job security, “most of the trans people that I find [in the industry] are absolutely in the closet, stealth because it’s a really toxic work environment for people in general.” It’s not just discrimination from customers; it’s also the hypermasculine kitchen culture that persists in restaurants to this day.

Having a job is a high bar to clear for many trans people, says Michaels. “If you don’t have a house to go home to, or a place to change your clothes and shower or eat, how are you going to be able to get or sustain a job in the first place?” While the risk of losing a job is worrisome for everyone, unemployment, homelessness, and food insecurity are things that affect trans people more across the board. According to an April 2020 report from the Williams Institute looking at pre-pandemic numbers, “78.1 percent of trans adults are in the workforce, 12.8 percent of whom are unemployed, translating to an estimated 139,700 trans people unemployed (and looking for work) nationwide. In comparison, between 3.9 percent and 4.9 percent of U.S. adults in the labor force are unemployed.”

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated those numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the unemployment rate at 13.3 percent for May. And according to the Human Rights Campaign, trans people have been more likely to have lost their jobs during the pandemic and economic crisis: “19 percent of transgender people and 26 percent of transgender people of color have become unemployed due to COVID-19, compared to 17 percent of LGBTQ people and 12 percent of the general population.” The numbers are particularly bad for the food industry. The BLS reports that an additional 1.2 million jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector were lost in May, on top of the 7.4 million lost in April. And HRC reports that LGBTQ people are more likely to work in industries affected by COVID-19, including 2 million (15 percent) who work in restaurants and food services.

The SCOTUS decision sets a precedent, both legal and social, and signals to employers that there are bigger consequences for discrimination, but bigoted employers will always find other ways to alienate and push out trans employees. (The ruling does not apply to contractors, like most delivery drivers or Instacart shoppers.) Both Prytula and Michaels note how rare it would be to have “evidence” of a boss firing someone because they are trans. “I can’t tell you the number of times that people have tried to get rid of me because I’m trans without saying, ‘This is because you’re trans,’” says Michaels. “I’ve had managers and chefs try to get me to quit or leave, that have thrown around really horrible language. They’ll be using ‘faggot,’ I’ll be barred from the restroom of my gender identity, they give you inappropriate schedules, they give you inappropriate uniforms.”

The nature of the ruling also just doesn’t apply when much of working in the food service industry involves interacting with customers, who are essentially your bosses for 90 minutes at a time and are under no legal requirement to treat you fairly. “If you’re no longer allowed to be fired for being queer, but your income depends on whether or not guests find you palatable, or performing the right way, or, god help you, attractive, it doesn’t really help that much,” says Prytula.

Then there’s the issue of at-will employment. If you work without a union that has argued for just-cause termination, in most states, your boss can fire you without reason anyway. “Often the unique circumstances and additional burdens queer, and especially trans folks live with can make them more susceptible to ‘fireable offenses,’” says V Spehar, a nonbinary person who has worked in the hospitality industry for years, and who most recently was the Director of Impact at the James Beard Foundation, focusing on Women’s Leadership & LGBTQ programs. “Being late, having to grin and bear rude customers’ comments, lack of emotional or mental support, lack of secure housing or familial support” are all reasons that an employee could be seen as “not the right fit.”

On an encouraging note, there are other legislative pushes that, while helping all workers, could protect trans people specifically. Prytula says doing away with tipped minimum wage would mean trans food service workers would be more likely to earn a living wage without monitoring their appearance for the sake of transphobic customers. Doing away with at-will employment could do a lot too, as Sarah Jones writes for New York Magazine, as trying to sue your former employers for trans discrimination “can burden workers who don’t have the independent means to hold their former employers accountable.”

Spehar also says more change needs to come from within the industry, and not only from outside legislation. “Without creating a culture of understanding for the out-of-work burdens that disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community, we are all still held to the same ‘professional’ standards and expectations created by cis white culture,” they say. That means restaurant owners and nonprofits prioritizing anti-bias training, putting resources toward helping queer and trans people open their own businesses, and centering the fact that the food industry “is built foundationally on black, queer, women’s, and immigrant’s labor.” And making sure these issues take priority outside of Pride month, when many businesses use the LGBTQ community for marketing gimmicks.

Michaels still sees the food service industry as a place where trans people can thrive. She notes that James Beard was an out gay man at a time when that wasn’t widely accepted, and how restaurants and bars, especially Black- and women-owned restaurants and organizations, are committing themselves to diversity, equity, and inclusion work. But she also notes there’s a bigger picture outside the rights of those who find employment. “I don’t know that it is in legislation,” says Michaels. The SCOTUS ruling is an important piece in the massive, and mostly incomplete, puzzle of legislation and activism that’s needed to truly secure equitable treatment for trans people. “Legislation, as we’ve seen, can be fickle, and driven by administration, politicized,” says Spehar, “and in the end will never do what humanity and compassion from the industry can do.”

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